The Political Writings of Richard Cobden, Vol. 1 - Richard Cobden

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Richard Cobden, The Political Writings of Richard
Cobden, vol. 1 [1835]
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Edition Used:
The Political Writings of Richard Cobden, with a Preface by Lord Welby,
Introductions by Sir Louis Mallet, C.B., and William Cullen Bryant, Notes by F.W.
Chesson and a Bibliography, vol. 1, (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1903).
Author: Richard Cobden
Foreword: Reginald Earle Welby, Lord Welby
Introduction: Sir Louis Mallet
Introduction: William Cullen Bryant
About This Title:
Vol. 1 of a two volume collection of the political writings of Richard Cobden which
focuses on foreign policy, and war and peace. Vol. 1 contains England, Ireland, and
America (1835), Russia (1836), and 1793 and 1853 in Three Letters (1853),
only the first two letters are in this volume. The thid letter is in vol. 2.
Online Library of Liberty: The Political Writings of Richard Cobden, vol. 1
PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011) 2 http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/82
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Table Of Contents
Preface
Introduction to the Second Edition By Sir Louis Mallet, C.B.
England, Ireland, and America. 1835.
Part I.: England.
Part II.: Ireland.
Part III: America.
Russia. 1836.
Chapter I: Russia, Turkey, and England.
Chapter II: Poland, Russia, and England.
Chapter III: The Balance of Power
Chapter IV: Protection of Commerce
Appendix.: Extracts From Various Writers, Illustrative of the Condition of
Turkey.
1793 and 1853, In Three Letters.
Preface.
Letter I.: Mr. Cobden to the Reverend .
Letter II.: Mr. Cobden to the Reverend .
R. Cobden
[Back to Table of Contents]
PREFACE
The State is severe mother. She demands from her noblest sons their intellects, their
energies, and, if need be, their lives; but she is not ungrateful. The men who have
guided her destinies live in grateful memory and in memory the more honoured, if to
great service and lofty aims they have added disregard of self, directness of purpose,
and simplicity of character. Such men become household words of the nation. They
create the standard by which the nation measures itself, and by which it is measured.
They strike the keynote of national character. Such a man was Richard Cobden, a type
of a great Englishman to Englishmen of all times, a type in his truthfulness, in his
simplicity, and in his devotion to the welfare of his countrymen.
It is nearly forty years since he passed away, and in the interval much has happened.
During his youth and the prime of his manhood the people were suffering under the
results of the Great War. Excessive taxation weighed upon all classes, but more
especially upon the wage-earning and poorer classes. The progress of the nation was
hampered by bad laws and unwise restrictions. The condition of the poor was
miserable, for employment was scarce, wages were low, and food was dear.
Education was neglected, and little had been done to make the mass of the people fit
for the citizenship of a great and free country. This was the condition of the nation as
Cobden knew it. He saw that improvement was impossible as long as the labouring
classes were ill-fed and often unemployed, and he threw himself with all his soul into
the fight for free trade and cheap food. The tale of the fight is admirably told in
Morley's life of him. As one reads it, one is struck by the tact, the resource, the vigour
and statesmanship of the man. Protection ruled in trade and agriculture, and the
protected interests were to a man against him. But his chief foe was the agricultural
interest. The great landowners were arrayed against him. The fight was long and
severe, but Free Trade triumphed in the end and Cobden was the leader of the
victorious party. There is no passage in the records of Parliamentary debate more
striking than the oft-quoted tribute which in the hour of his triumph Sir Robert Peel
paid to him.
The name which ought to be associated with the success of our measures of
commercial policy is not the name of the noble lord the organ of the party of which he
is the leader, nor is it mine. The name which ought to be, and will be, associated with
the success of those measures is the name of one who, acting, I believe, from pure and
disinterested motives, has, with untiring energy, made appeals to our reason, and has
enforced those appeals with an eloquence the more to be admired because it was
unaffected and unadorned: the name which ought to be chiefly associated with the
success of those measures is the name of Richard Cobden.
The verdict of posterity has confirmed the judgment of Sir Robert Peel. It has
associated inseparably and for ever the name of Cobden with the great Act of 1846.
Many men and many interests then contested and now contest the policy of that Act,
but generous opponents have never questioned the power, the energy, and the
singlemindedness with which he fought the fight. Six years after the repeal of the
Corn Laws an event took place which fittingly crowned his labours. In December,
1852, the Tory party, after depriving Peel of office, after opposing for six long years
his policy as ruinous to the nation, and after appealing to the country to reverse that
policy, hauled down their colours, and the Tory Ministers of the Crown, and the bulk
of their party followed the Liberals into the lobby in order to affirm a resolution that
the policy of Cobden, which they had condemned, was sound and successful, and
ought to be maintained. On that occasion a follower of Peel, pointing to the Treasury
Bench, exclaimed, If you want humiliation, look there. Cobden cared little for the
humiliation. It was enough for him that, an insignificant minority of some fifty
excepted, both parties in the House of Commons combined to affirm the great
principle of which he was the champion.
It has been said that Cobden and Bright were demagogues. They were certainly
leaders of the people; but a demagogue is generally supposed to secure and maintain
his power with the people by flattering and cajoling them. A simple test will show
whether Cobden and Bright were demagogues in this sense. In 1854 the Russian war
broke out. The nation has always a warlike tendency, and when its leaders tell it that
war is necessary, it accepts their judgment but too readily, throwing itself into the
struggle with vigorous and earnest resolution. In that mood neither the upper classes
nor the working classes are tolerant of opposition, and statesmen, however honest and
capable, if they question the passion of the hour, are heard with impatience, their
warnings and remonstrances are brushed aside, and, when opportunities offer, the
constituencies are not slow to punish them; for the masses are unable to appreciate
motives which appear to them unpatriotic. The result is intelligible, though not always
creditable to the common sense of the nation. No demagogue, anxious to secure
popularity and power, would oppose in such circumstances the dominant mood.
Cobden and Bright thought that the Government and the people were in error, and that
the war was unnecessary. Careless of popularity when conscience was concerned,
they boldly expressed their views in and out of Parliament, and as a consequence they
lost their popularity, and when, a year or two later, they denounced the war with
China arising out of the miserable affair of the lorcha Arrow, they lost their seats.
Who will say now that it was not good for the nation that the warning voice should
have been raised, and that honour is not due to the men who dared to raise if? Who
will say in the light of experience that they were wrong in either case? There are few
of us who lived in those days, and shared the prevailing opinion, but have more than a
doubt whether in the Crimean war our money was not wasted, and, what is worse,
gallant lives lost in a bad cause. We know at least that one great Tory leader, lately,
alas! taken from us, held that we put our money on the wrong horse. But be that as it
may, happy is the country which has such demagogues as Cobden and Bright.
Demagogues in the ordinary sense they were not. The title would fit better those who
in war time use their passing popularity to inflame the national passion, and to crush
opponents who do not share their views.
The could of distress which so long hung over the nation had begun to lift some years
before Cobden died. He lived indeed to see the commencement of that national
prosperity which marked the last third of the nineteenth century. When he
commenced his campaign against Protection the value of British produce exported
was rather more than 50,000,000. In 1864 it had risen to 160,000,000. In the year
1902 it had risen to 283,000,000. In 1841 one in every eleven persons of the
population was in receipt of poor relief; in 1864 one in twenty; in 1902 only one in
forty. In 1841 the deposits in Savings Banks were 24,500,000. In 1864 they had risen
to 44,500,000; in 1900 to more than 207,000,000, besides 59,000,000 invested in
Building and Provident Societies. In 1843 the total annual value of the property and
profits assessed to income tax were, including an estimate for Ireland, 270,000,000.
In 1864 it had risen to 370,000,000, and in 1900 to 758,000,000. Thus, in the
quarter of a century from the formation of the Anti-Corn Law League, Cobden saw
the result of that great movement in an increase of 200 per cent. in the export of our
goods, in the diminution of pauperism by nearly a half, in the savings of the poor
nearly doubled, and in the increase by 37 per cent. of the income of the well-to-do
classes. Truly he might feel that, thanks in the main to the labours of himself and
Bright, to the policy of which he had been the champion, the country had entered on a
period of progress and prosperity. What would he have thought if his life could have
been spared to the beginning of the twentieth century, and seen continued progress in
our export trade, pauperism again decreased by a half, the savings of the poor
increased by near 400 per cent., and the incomes of the well-to-do more than doubled?
Two facts characterise the national mood in the latter part of the century which would
have grieved Cobden to the heartthe growth of military and naval expenditure and
the development of warlike spirit in the people. He thought in 1850 an expenditure on
army and navy of 16,000,000 excessive, and in 1864 he thought an expenditure on
those services of 26,000,000 still more excessive. On this point he and Bright were
not singular. Many men not of the Manchester school shared their views, and in 1862
the Liberal party in Parliament insisted on reduction of expenditure, supporting
Gladstone in the Cabinet against Palmerston, and Palmerston had to yield. But if
Cobden thought the expenditure of 1850 and 1864 excessive, what would he have
thought of a military and naval expenditure of between 70,000,000 and 80,000,000
in 1903a year of peace? And how would it have added to his sorrow to learn that
this enormous expenditure is tolerated, one might say approved, by a democracy!
When Cobden died the country was ruled by the middle classes, the house-holder of
10 and upwards. He was earnestly in favour of a wide extension of the suffrage.
Within a few years of his death house-hold suffrage was established, and the franchise
was extended to the agricultural labourers. Thus a middle-class Government was
converted into a democracy. The middle-class constituencies had been economical to
a certain extent, though not nearly so economical as Cobden would have wished. The
democracy has been, and is, lavishly extravagant. A great Tory statesman, deploring
the increase of public expenditure, could only say plaintively, Who are we that we
should stem the tide?an expression of despair, perhaps, hardly worthy of the leader
of a great party, but indicative of the reality, I might say the popularity, of the evil,
and of the difficulty of coping with it. Cobden acted consistently on principle, and we
may rest assured that he would have granted the extension of the suffrage, even if he
could have foreseen that the democracy would use it to their own disadvantage. He
would have held that the people had a right to govern themselves, whether they used
their power well or ill, but it would have sorely disappointed him to see the
democracy, the working classes, whose true interest lies in public economy and low
taxation, as eager as ever were the upper classes, and much more eager than the
middle classes, for military glory, expansion of territory, and lavish expenditure.
The great work of Free Trade which Cobden accomplished is now wantonly assailed,
and it is well that at the present crisis a new edition of his chief writings should be
issued in order that men may read for themselves, and at first hand, the opinions
which he held, and may learn from himself his conception of the true interests of the
nation of which he was so eminently a type. I would rather live in a country where
the feeling in favour of individual liberty is jealously cherished, than be without it in
the enjoyment of all the principles of the French constituted assembly. Thus spoke
the true Englishman. His speeches and writings are ransacked to find prophecies and
anticipations which have not been fulfilled, in the hope of shaking faith in the
soundness of the practical policy which he did so much to establish. Let him speak for
himself. I care not whether his generous belief in the virtue of mankind, in their
capacity for learning the lesson of enlightened self-interest and national morality led
him into hopes which have not been justified by facts. Have the predictions of other
great statesmen always been fulfilled? Shortly before the Peace of Amiens, Pitt
thought that he could find the means for another year of war, and that England would
then be exhausted, yet England found the means for carrying on the war until 1815,
though unhappily she suffered under this strain on her resources for many a long year.
Was Canning correct in his bombastic prophecy that he had called into existence a
new world to correct the balance of the old? Has Palmerston's belief in the future of
Turkey, which led him into the Crimean War, been justified? Or, to take a more
modern instance, what shall we say of the foresight of our modern statesmen, who
shut their eyes to the warnings of their expert advisers, and went totally unprepared
into a great war, confident that it would last a few months and cost 10,000,000? It
lasted nearly three years and cost 250,000,000. These were grave miscalculations of
the future. In three of them they were especially grave, because they concerned
immediate policy, but Cobden's hopes as to the spread of Free Trade in foreign
countries, and the growth of desire for peace, did not affect his practical policy. He
advocated Free Trade, as essential to the welfare and progress of the nation,
irrespective of foreign tariffs or the warlike tendencies of nations. The higher
foreigners built their tariff wall with a view to exclude our goods, the more resolute
would he have been to demolish the wall, which a long period of Protectionist
government had been erecting on this side the Channel. He wanted to give our
working classes cheap food, and our manufacturers untaxed raw materials, and the
incitement to skill and industry which competition affords, in order that we might
continue to hold our pre-eminence in trade.
But the new Protectionists argue that circumstances have changed since 1846, and
that the policy of 1 846 is no longer suited to the needs of the nation. Mr. Balfour, in
his recent manifesto, lays it down that we ought to accept provisionally the view that
the character of our fiscal policy should vary with varying circumstances, and he
proposes to give effect to his axiom by a total revolution in our fiscal policy, which
certainly cannot be described as provisional. In face, however, of so radical a change,
it is not sufficient to say merely that circumstances have changed. The burthen of
proof lies with the Government. The Prime Minister must show by facts that
circumstances have changed to the detriment of the nation and to an extend which
justifies the revolution. Is the prosperity of the nation declining? Let us take Mr.
Balfour's evidence. Judged by all available tests, both the total wealth and the
diffused well-being of the country are greater than they ever have been. We are not
only rich and prosperous in appearance, but also, I believe, in reality. I can find no
evidence that we are living on our capital. So far, therefore, and on the evidence of
the chief opponent of Free Trade, circumstances have not changed to the detriment of
the nation. Under Free Trade the country, since 1846, has steadily advanced in
prosperity. What, then, is the Prime Minister's reason for the revolution? According to
him a close examination of our export returns show signs of diminution, and he
appends figures in support of his view, but his test is faulty. His argument applies to
the volume of our exports, and his figures to their declared value. But the value is
based on the prices of the years, which vary from year to year, and are therefore a
faulty basis of comparison. Hence upon a superficial examination he formed a vague
apprehension, and he offers this as a sufficient reason for a return to a system of
retaliation so long tried, and so decidedly condemned by that most cautious and
prudent of statesmen, Sir Robert Peel. It Cobden's policy is brought to trial upon this
indictment only, his followers need not fear the verdict.
But Cobden's forecasts were not confined to the spread of Free Trade, or the growth
of desire for peace. Let us note in his writings how sound were his views, how just his
prescience on most of the important questions of the day. In England, Ireland, and
America, published in 1835, and in Russia, published in 1836, he pleaded for non-
intervention, not only as in accordance with moral law, but as a policy essential to the
true interests of this country. He saw that the great change which had been silently
taking place in the development of manufactures and in the growth of our town
population made it necessary to review the principles of our domestic policy in order
to adapt the Government to the changing condition of the people, and to alter the
maxim by which its foreign relations have in past times been regulated. He said that
the policy of making food dear in order to protect the interest of one class of
producers was not only unjust, but impossible. The larger part of the working classes,
ill-fed and ill-paid, would not suffer for long their food to be made artificially dear by
class legislation, that discontent and class war must be the result. He saw alsosaw
justly and saw firstthat it is from the silent and peaceful rivalry of American
commerce, the growth of its manufactures, its rapid progress in internal improvement,
the superior education of the people and their economical and pacific
Governmentthat it is from these, and not from the barbarous or the impoverishing
armaments of Russia that the grandeur of our commercial and national prosperity is
endangered. He added, indeed, that in less than twenty years this would be the
sentiment of the people of England generally. His prophecy was somewhat too
sanguine, but sixty years at all events have taught us the justice of his views as to the
United States. He showed us also how to face our great antagonist, viz., by removing
all obstacles to trade. The United States have a thriving and intelligent population of
80,000,000 nearly double that of the United Kingdom. They are lightly taxed, very
little indebted, and incur insignificant charge for military and naval service. Yearly a
large proportion of the people goes into the towns and engages in manufacturing
industries, and it is at this moment, when their competition with us becomes daily
more intense, that it is gravely proposed that we should fetter and impede our
manufacturing and consuming powers by preferential and retaliatory duties, that we
should tie up a man's leg in order to help him in running a race.
Take, again, Cobden's views as to Ireland. How, after a powerful picture of Ireland's
condition, he traces the evils which produced such results to the ignorance of England
on Irish questions. How he condemns the statesmen who have averted their faces
from this diseased member of the body politic. Listen to the following words written
in 1851: Hitherto in Ireland the sole reliance has been on bayonets and patching. The
feudal system presses upon that country in a way which, as a rule, only foreigners can
understand, for we have an ingrained feudal spirit in our English character. I never
spoke to a French or Italian economist who did not at once put his finger on the fact
that great masses of landed property were held by the descendants of a conquering
race, who were living abroad, and thus in a double manner perpetuating the
remembrance of conquest and oppression, while the natives were at the same time
precluded from possessing themselves of landed property, and thus becoming
interested in the peace of the country. . . . How are we to get out of this dilemma with
the present House of Commons, and our representative system as it is, is the
problem. The problem was not to be solved by that House of Commons or the
limited representative system that then existed. The Home Rule Bill of Mr. Gladstone
may be open to criticism, but impartial history will recognise that he, with all the
earnestness of his nature, forced the English nation much against its will to face the
Irish questionsthe question of the Irish Church, Irish self-government, and Irish
land tenure. In this year of grace a Conservative Government is completing, with
large aid from the British Exchequer, the revolution in the tenure of Irish land begun
in1881, and Mr. Wyndham's measure, which aims at ending this feudal system of
land tenure, confirms and justifies the foresight of Cobden and the policy of
Gladstone. In Russia, published in 1836, and in What Next and Next? published
during the Crimean War, Cobden reproved the spirit of Russo-phobia then rampant,
and rampant long afterwards; but there are signs that thinking minds are beginning to
share the views of Cobden on that the fear of Russia, which has so long haunted the
nation, which plunged us into the Crimean War, the Afghanistan War, and which
more recently led the Government to take a course in China which has not enhanced
our reputation.
In his letter to Mr. Ashworth (Aril 10, 1862) Cobden urged that all private property
should in time of war be exempt from capture at sea, that neutral ships ought to be
exempt from search or visitation, and that the commercial ports of an enemy ought to
be exempt from blockade. Cobden advocated these changes in international law, after
his wont, because they would be of special advantage to this country. Many people
are at present exercised as to the ensuring a supply of food for this country in time of
war. They are discussing clumsy and expensive remedies against this contingency.
They would do well to consider Cobden's able argument in support of his proposal.
This country could not under any circumstances provide the food required for its
immense population, and it must be dependent on foreign countries for the raw
material of its manufacturers. No country, therefore, is more interested in
modifications of international law which would ensure the supply of these
necessaries. It is possible that those modifications might not be respected by
belligerent nations under the stress of war, but their acceptance by the Powers would
impose an obligation on belligerents, which could not be repudiated without risk and
without dishonour. The Three Panics is a powerfully-written pamphlet, both in style
and matter. It is an excellent example of the manner in which Cobden seizes the weak
points of a policy to which he is opposed, of the clearness and conciseness with which
the exposes them, and of the skill and power with which he drives homes his
conclusions.
In these writings Cobden may have overrated anticipated advantages and underrated
difficulties. He may have been to sanguine in some directions, he may have relied too
much on the wisdom of this and other nations, and not have been sufficiently alive to
the ambition of statesmen and to international jealousies; but no fair person can fail to
by struck by the general soundness of his argument, the morality of his statesmanship,
and the correctness in the main of his foresight, as evidenced by the manner in which
national opinion has veered in his direction. His opinion on national expenditure will
be chiefly criticised. Probably he, like other persons, taught by the experience of the
last forty years, would admit the necessity of a navy, sufficiently powerful according
to our present knowledge, for our defence. It must indeed be remembered that he
accepted the principle of that policy, though he did not accept even the standard of
efficiency accepted by the statesmen of that day. On the whole, however, how just
was his opinion of the national interest in public economy! True Liberals, true Free
Traders, must endorse his principles as strongly now as then, nay, more strongly, for
the evil of extravagance becomes daily more evident. Conservatives, such as Lord
Salisbury and Sir M. Hicks-Beach, deplore it, but have been powerless to check it. We
have lost their services, and their places are occupied by the advocates of
extravagance and Protection. Liberals know that if a nation is to be strong and
contented the mass of the population must be sufficiently fed. The extravagance of
peace expenditure in the last few years has necessitated a reversal of the wise policy
which ruled from 1842 for forty years. The tea duty has been raised until it is nearly
100 percent. on the value of the article. A duty has been placed upon sugar equivalent
to 50 per cent. upon its value, apart from our quixotic anxiety to lose a bounty worth
to us probably another 50 per cent. The supposed necessity for lavish expenditure has
made it necessary to seek new sources of revenue, and high financial authority has
pleaded that the basis of taxation must be widened. That is to say, duties must be
imposed on articles of consumption, and the poorest classes must be taxed in order to
meet the ever-increasing demand for military expenditurea singular device for
improving the physical strength and consequently the power of the nation. Mr.
Chamberlain goes a step further, and would widen the basis of taxation in
furtherance of a new life of policy. He wishes to tax the bread of the poor as a tribute
to our prosperous fellow subjects in the self-governing Colonies, and in the hope that
this contribution from the working classes at home may induce the Colonies to enter
into closer confederation with us. Thus economy in public expenditure in which
Cobden insisted with such earnestness is absolutely abandoned, and the Liberal learns
the value of that article in his creed, when he sees the result. Military experts, policy-
mongers, interested trades have only to ask in order to receive. The tub of the Danaids
is a water-tight vessel compared with the exchequer. The burthen of this extravagance
weighs upon all classes, but most upon the poor.
The Free Trader, on his side, sees that extravagance in public expenditure, by making
new taxation necessary, has given the Protectionists an opportunity of which they are
not slow to avail themselves, and it is only too likely that, if the nation does not speak
out, Protection in aggravated form will be a plank in the Conservative platform. Thus
the lesson which Cobden taught is brought home to Liberal and Free Trader alike, and
the wisdom of the teaching is made only too clear.
Students of English may learn much form Cobden's writings. They are like his
speechclear, fearless, vigorous, but persuasive. The style was the man, the result of
conviction based upon close observation and careful thought. The purity of his style is
the more remarkable, since he had no advantage from education in the formation of it;
but his keen sense of beauty, his innate power of understanding excellence in art,
bestowed upon him a power of appreciation such as men usually acquire by long
study. How genuine, in his Italian diary, is his admiration of the great works of
antiquity, and how well he expresses his admiration of them!
The two great twin brethren of Free Trade were singularly fitted for co-operation in
the conduct of a crusade against vested interests and deep-rooted prejudices. Both
were outspoken, both put clearly and pointedly their argument to the public, and
neither of them was a respecter of persons. Bright, however, was bold and somewhat
aggressive, while Cobden was bold and persuasive. Cobden, therefore, aroused less
personal antagonism; but the English mind is conservative, and people in comfortable
circumstances regard with distrust the man who attacks established interests and the
existing order of things. Hence Cobden, though perhaps in a less degree than Bright,
was for years misunderstood by the upper classes. A lady of conservative principles,
but generous sympathies, who is gifted with a power, rare in women, of appreciating a
political opponent, was an intimate friend of Cobden. She knew the pleasure which
works of art gave him, and she proposed that they should visit together a well-known
collection. She asked her friend, the owner of the pictures, for permission. The lady
replied that they might come and lunch, but that she herself could not meet Mr.
Cobden. To thinking minds such prejudice is astonishing, but there is little doubt that
had his life been spared he would have lived it down as Bright lived it down, and
possibly more easily than Bright.
May a new edition of Cobden's writings in this hour of crisis for Free Trade find
readers in every part of the kingdom. His pamphlets have lost nothing of their
intrinsic value, though they were written seventy, fifty, forty years ago, and though
the circumstances of the nation, and the temper of the nation, have changed greatly in
the interval. The principles they inculcate, the lessons they teach, are as good and as
sound now as they were then. Thoughtful readers will realise how Cobden's policy
has removed causes of discontent, has promoted good understanding throughout the
community, and tended to weld rich and poor into one nation. They will realize how
just, and therefore how conservative, were his views, and how sound in the main was
his judgment, even tried during half a century by the hard test of experience. We who
are free Traders have absolute confidence in our principle, and our belief in the great
leader of the Free Trade movement is unabated.
INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION
By Sir Louis Mallet, C.B.
THE POLITICAL OPINIONS OF RICHARD COBDEN.
PREFACE.
The following paper was written for the North British Review in 1867, and has been
reprinted, with a few alterations, by permission of the editor, at the request of the
Committee of the Cobden Club.
I originally wrote it with reluctance, because I was conscious of my inability to do
justice to its subject, but I though that, as a contribution towards a better
understanding of Cobden's, political character, it might serve a useful purpose; and in
the same hope I have consented to reprint it now.
I have done so the more readily, because it is impossible not to feel that Cobden's
principles are even now constantly misrepresented; and are, in some directions, losing
their hold on the public mind of England.
Is it in ignorance, or in irony, that the charge of aiming at nothing more than mere
material prosperity is so often brought against the one statesman who vindicated with
a peculiar wisdom the morality of Economic Science; in other words, the veiled but
eternal harmony between material progress and the highest civilisation of our race?
Is it in deeper ignorance, or in more subtle irony, that one whose whole life was an
unceasing protest against a narrow and selfish patriotism, and who will take his place
in history as the International Man, has been identified with the policy which, under
the name of non-intervention, confounds in a coarse and common condemnation,
political meddling and international co-operation?
I have said that Cobden's principles are in some directions losing their hold on the
public mind. This is especially the case with respect to what we call Free Trade;
which, between its so-called friends and its enemies, is drifting more and more into
irretrievable confusion as a principle of imperial policy.
In its domestic aspect Free Trade, or rather Free Exchange, has been forgotten in
the chorus of congratulation at the downfall of protection in its grossest form; and in
our Foreign policy, while discarding reciprocity of restrictions, we have failed to
appreciate the importance of the reciprocity of freedom.
We have obtained enough Free Trade to enable our upper and middle classes and
acquire more wealth than, with their present education, they can either employ wisely
or spend innocently, and to stimulate unproductive consumption in vulgar luxury and
wasteful charity; but we have not obtained enough Free Trade to feed and clothe and
house our people, or to inspire confidence in other countries, and to establish those
international relations without which all hope of internal progress is a foolish and idle
dream.
It is painful to perceive the inferiority of the political utterances of our day on social
and economic questions, to those of the Anti-Corn-Law League, in grasp of
principles, in command of facts, and, above all, in moral feeling.
The men who took part in the labours of the League dwell naturally more on that
which they have done, than on that which we have to do; and a generation has
succeeded to a large share in our political life, which consults for the solution of our
social problems far other oracles than those which inspired Cobden.
The sinister reaction set in motion by the Crimean War, fostered by the wars in China,
and culminating in the Parliament of 1857, has gone far to neutralise the impulse
given to our productive forces by the partial liberation of our trade, and left us with
increased wealth indeed, but with a distribution of it more unequal and more unnatural
than before, and with a large population, whose chronic wretchedness and degradation
is a standing reproach to our civilisation, and a sullen protest against our laws. And
while the cry of suffering multitudes is the morning and the evening sacrifice of our
proudest cities, our Government and our people alike are calling on each other
helplessly in turn for a policy a deliverance.
Can we wonder, then, that those who have been taught to believe that they are living
under a Free Trade dispensation, and who have never taken the pains to compare the
doctrines of its apostles with the practice of our lawgivers, should accuse it of
disastrous failure; and that while on one hand we are advised to desist from further
action till, by the free play of consciousness, we have discovered an intelligible law of
things; on the other, we are urged to tamper with the laws, and assail the rights of
labour and of property, and to revive discarded systems which are only innocent so
long as they are impossible?
But before accusing Economic Science and Free Exchange, I would ask whether, with
our present laws as they affect our land, our currency, our fiscal and colonial systems,
our foreign relations, and our military and naval administration, we may not rather
trace our failure in civilisation to a systematic and deliberate violation of their most
imperious precepts? Whether the success of what is called practical statesmanship is
such as to justify its cynical contempt of principles? and whether it is wise to
condemn and discredit as ineffectual a policy which has never yet been tried?
It is because I believe that the work of Governments lies in providing for the full and
undistributed action of the forces of freedom, instead of interfering themselves with
their operation; and that our social disorders can only be remedied by pressing along
the lines of progress, laid for us by Cobden and the League; that I view with pain and
fear the morbid craving of our time after other agencies, in most of which may be
detected, disguise it as we may, the germ of Communism, a fatal poison, tainting at
their common source two of the most sacred springs of social life, personal liberty and
personal responsibility.
June, 1869.
L. M.
THE POLITICAL OPINIONS OF RICHARD COBDEN.
The time has not yet arrived for writing Cobden's life.
The great political struggles in which he engaged are still too fresh in the memory of
the present generation, to admit of a faithful record of his political career, without
including much which affects too closely the characters of public men still on the
scene, or but recently removed from it; and of the last great achievement of his life,
and his solitary official act, the Commercial Treaty with France, it is impossible yet to
speak freely.
But it is on this account only the more importantand especially at a time when upon
the conduct and intelligence of the Liberal party in this country it depends, whether
the years before us are to bring with them a repetition of the inconsistencies and
hesitations which have too often deformed and paralysed our recent course, or are to
be a fruitful and brilliant period of rational and consistent progressthat the policy of
which Cobden was the foremost representative, should at least be thoroughly
understood and widely known.
It is therefore with a peculiar satisfaction that we hail the work before us, and we trust
it may be shortly followed by a republication of his principal speeches, both in and
out of Parliament, so far as these can be collected, and if possible by a selection of his
letters, on the great practical questions of the day.
In bringing together, in a connected form, these political essays written on various
subjects, on different occasions, and at wide intervals of time, but unsurpassed in
cogency of reasoning, and in their truthful and temperate spirit, Mrs. Cobden has
rendered a great service both to her husband's memory and to the rising generation of
Englishmen.
Presented originally to the public in the ephemeral form of pamphlets, thrown out in
sharp opposition to the prevailing passions and prejudices of the hour, and
systematically depreciated as they were by the organs of public opinion which guide
the majority of our upper classes, we suspect that they are well-nigh forgotten by the
elder, and little known to the younger men among us. Yet do these scattered records
of Mr. Cobden's thoughts contain a body of political doctrine more original, more
profound, and more consistent, than is to be found in the spoken or written utterances
of any other English statesman of our time, and we commend them to the earnest
study and consideration of all who aspire to exert an influence on the future
government of our country.
Whatever may be thought of his political character, it will be admitted that no man
has made a deeper impression on the policy of this country during the last thirty years
than Richard Cobden.
This will, we believe, be acknowledged by many of his countrymen, who would be
slow to allow that the impression thus made had been for good, and who still regard
him with open aversion or concealed suspicion, as one of the foremost and most
powerful advocates of changes in our system of government, designed, as they believe
and fear, to affect the security of vested interests, which they have been in the habit of
identifying with the greatness and welfare of the State. But it cannot, we think, be
denied even now that, in spite of the resistance of class interests, and of the avowed or
tacit opposition of the great political parties, our national policy has been gravitating
more and more in the direction of his views, and that, so far at least, whatever
progress has been made in the national prosperity has been principally due to the steps
which have been taken in fulfillment of his principles.
The false judgment so commonly passed upon this statesman is to be traced, we
believe, in a great measure to that which constitutes his great and his distinguished
merit, viz., his steady adherence to general principles, and his consequent freedom
from class and party views, and his indifference to the popular clamour of the hour,
which in turn brought him into collision with all classes and with all parties, and, on
some memorable occasions, with the body of the people themselves.
It is thus that he has been constantly charged with narrowness, and with hostility to
the institutions of his country, too often confounded with its conservative forces, and
cherished as such by many who are entitled to our respect, as well as by the ignorant
and selfish; but it will be found that the charge is usually brought on the part of some
class whose special interests he denounced or thwarted, or on the part of the nation at
large, when the assumed national interest has been opposed to the larger interest of
humanity. He has been accused of want of patriotism and indifference to the national
honour and greatness, when, on the contrary, a deeper examination of his views will
show, we think, that he was one of the few leading statesmen of our time who have
exhibited a real practical faith in the future of England.
The public estimate, however, of this political leader has undergone, and is
undergoing, a very remarkable change; and it is in the hope of aiding in a better
understanding of principles which, from their soundness and close logical coherence,
appear to us to afford the only consistent and intelligible ground for the policy of the
Liberal party, that the following pages are written.
Mr. Cobden's political character was the result of a rare and fortunate combination of
personal qualities and of external circumstances.
Sprung from the agricultural class, and bred up (to use his own expression) amidst
the pastoral charms of Southern England, imbued with so strong an attachment to the
pursuits of his forefathers, that, as he says himself, in the volumes before us, had we
the casting of the rle of all the actors on this world's stage, we do not think that we
should suffer a cotton-mill or manufactory to have a place in it; trained in a large
commercial house in London, and subsequently conducting on his own account a
print manufactory in Lancashire, Mr. Cobden possessed the peculiar advantage of a
thorough acquaintance and sympathy with the three great forms of industrial life in
England. Nor were the experiences of his public career less rich and varied than those
of his private life.
The first great political question in which he bore a conspicuous part, the Anti-Corn-
Law agitation, and his consequent connection with the powerful producing class,
which, by the fortunate coincidence of interest with that of the people at large,
originated and led this great and successful struggle, gave him a thorough insight into
this important element of our body-politic, in all its strength and in all its weakness;
his knowledge of other countriesthe result of keen personal observation, and much
travel both in Europe and America, his intimate relations with some of their best and
most enlightened men, as well as with their leading politicians, and the moderating
and restraining influences of twenty years of Parliamentary life, during which he
conciliated the respect and esteem even of his strongest opponents, combined with the
entire absence in his case of all sectarian influences and prejudicesgave to his
opinions a comprehensive and catholic character, which is perhaps the rarest of all the
attributes of English statesmanship.
Mr. Cobden entered Parliament, not, as is the fate of most of our public men, to
support a party, to play, for office, or to educate himself for professional
statesmanship, still less to gratify personal vanity or to acquire social importance, but
as the representative of distinct principles, and of a great cause.
Mr. Cobden belonged to the school of political thinkers who believe in the perfect
harmony of moral and economical laws, and that in proportion as these are
recognised, understood, and obeyed by nations, will be their advance in all that
constitutes civilisation.
He believed that the interests of the individual, the interests of the nation, and the
interests of all nations are identical; and that these several interests are all in entire
and necessary concordance with the highest interests of morality. With this belief, an
economic truth acquired with him the dignity and vitality of a moral law, and, instead
of remaining a barren doctrine of the intellect, became a living force, to move the
hearts and consciences of men. It is to a want of a clear conception of this great
harmony between the moral and economic law, or to a disbelief in its existence, that
are to be traced some of the most pernicious errors of modern times, and the
lamentable condition of Europe at the present moment.
We believe that the main cause of the hopeless failure of the great French Revolution,
in the creation and consolidation of free institutions in Europe, was the absence, on
the part of its leading spirits, of all sound knowledge of the order of facts upon which
economic science rests, and the prevalence of false ideas of government, derived from
classical antiquity.
Rousseau, who exercised a greater influence in bringing about the Revolution than
any other man, and after him Mirabeau and Robespierre, the two great figures which
represent and personify that mighty upheaval of society, were all fundamentally
wrong in their conception of the right of property. This, instead of regarding as a right
preceding all law, and lying at the root of all social existence, they considered simply
as a creation of the law, which itself again derived its rights from a social compact,
opposed in many respects to the natural rights of man. Society was thus made to rest
upon the quicksand of human invention, instead of being fixed on the rock of God's
providence; and law was made the source, instead of the guardian, of personal liberty
and of private property.
Hence the disastrous shipwreck of a great cause, the follies and the crimes, the wild
theories, the barren experiments, and the inevitable reaction. The principle invoked,
the State, was stronger than those who appealed to it, and swallowed them up in a
military despotism.
This false direction of ideas survived the Restoration, and when, after 1830, the
intellect of France again addressed itself to social questions, it was with the same
result. Saint Simon, Fourrier, Louis Blanc, and Proudhon are there to attest the deep-
rooted perversion of thought which has hitherto made all free government impossible
in France, and brought upon her again, for the second time, the stern hand of a
military ruler, who, wiser than his uncle, while setting aside for a time other forms of
liberty in France, has had the sagacity to perceive that, by entering upon even a partial
and tentative course of material reform, he could evoke forces which have hitherto
been strong enough to maintain him on his vantage-ground, against all the political
parties opposed to him, dynastic and socialist, whose common hatred to him has been
rendered impotent by the only other common bond between them, viz., their still
deeper hatred of some of the most sacred rights of the human racethe rights of
labour and of property. And even to this day what do we see? In spite of the terrible
experience of nearly a hundred years of failure, French so-called Liberal leaders still
ranged on the side of industrial monopoly and commercial privilege, and while
clamouring for constitutional freedom, proving in the same breath their incapacity for
using it, by denouncing that in which, at all events, the Emperor is entitled to the
sympathy of the friends of progresshis commercial policy. Until the bourgeois class
in Europe has learnt that no country can be free until the rights of its people are
secured by free exchange, they will have to choose between the rival alternations of
autocratic and socialistic misrule.
The great founder of the English school of political economy, who had witnessed
himself in France the disorders which preceded the Revolution, and speculated on
their causes, viewed them from another side. He instinctively perceived that, as all
human society must rest upon a material foundation, it was to the laws of material
progress that inquiry must be first directed, and that, before and beneath all systems of
government and all schemes of public morality, there must lie the science of the
wealth of nations. To the investigation of this science Adam smith devoted those
years of patient and conscientious thought, to which we owe the treatise which has
made his name immortal, and which, in spite of much that has been added and much
that has been taken from it since, remains as a great storehouse of knowledge to the
students of economic laws.
It is easy, however, to trace the habitual connection in the mind of smith, between the
dry facts of science and the great social laws which alone give them life and meaning,
and a belief in the steady natural gravitation of all the interests of our race towards
order and moral progress.
The school of English economists who succeeded him appear to us to have too much
lost sight of this necessary connection, and to have dwelt too exclusively on the
phenomena of economic facts, as distinct and separate from their correlative moral
consequences. To this cause, as well as to their partial and often inaccurate
observation of those phenomena, we attribute the absence of adequate political results
which has attended their teaching, the repugnance which their doctrines have too
often excited in generous and ardent natures, and the consequent discredit of a science
indispensable to the progress and prosperity of nations, and destined, perhaps more
than any other branch of human knowledge, to reconcile the ways of God to man.
The mission of man in this world is to possess the earth and subdue it, and for this
purpose to summon to his aid, and bring under his control, the external forces of
nature. This task, hard and ungrateful at first, become lighter as it proceeds. Every
natural force successively subdued to man's uses adds to the stock of gratuitous
services which are the common possession of the race, and when the rights of
property and labour are thoroughly established by universal freedom, and the services
of man have thus secured their just remuneration, the inequalities which prevail in the
conditions of human life, so far as they are the result of artificial, and not of natural,
causes, will diminish and disappear more an more, till even the lowest classes in the
social scale will be raised to a level of well-being hitherto unknown and unimagined.
The first great law of humanity is labour. By the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat thy
bread. From this there is no escape. The burden will be lightened, and reduced to a
minimum, inconceivable to us at present, as the forces of nature are brought by
science and industry more under the control of man; and it may be shifted, as it is,
from the whole to a part of society, but the law remains.
It is this law, then, the law of labour, which lies at the root of all human life. Upon
this foundation rests the whole fabric of society, religion, morals, science, art,
literature all that adorns or exalts existence. But if the law of labour is thus
paramount and sovereign, it follows that its rights are sacred, and that there can be no
permanent security for any society in which these are not protected. The rights of
labour involve and comprehend the right of personal liberty, and the right of property.
The first implies the free use of each man's powers and faculties; the second, an
inalienable title to the products of his labour, in use or in exchange.
It is to the violation of the rights of labour and of property, thus identified, in all the
various forms of human oppression and injustice, by force or by fraud, in defiance of
law or in the name of law, that is to be traced the greatest part of the disorders and
sufferings which have desolated humanity, and the unnecessary and unnatural
inequalities in the condition of men.
It is to the assertion of these rights, and to the gradual ascendency of the opposing and
equalising principles of justice and freedom, that the coming generations alone can
look for a future which shall be better than the past.
Il n'y a que deux moyens, says Bastiat, de se procurer less choses ncessaires
l'embellissement, et au perfectionnement de la viela production et la spoliation.
And again, Proprit et spoliation, surs nes du mme pre, Gnie du Bien, et
Gnie du Mal, Salut et Flau de la Socit, Puissances qui se disputent depuis le
commencement, l'empire et les destines du monde.
These truths are of comparatively recent acceptance even in theory among us, and in
practice still are far indeed from being applied. Such, moreover, is the confusion of
thought, engendered by historical association, political prejudice, and class interest,
that many of the forms of spoliation are hardly recognized when disguised in the garb
of a British institution, a party principle, or a vested right; in which artificial costume
they still impose on the credulity of many of our countrymen.
It is true that war is generally admitted to be an evil, and slavery to be a wrong; that
the Reformation has dealt a heavy blow at theocracy, and Free Trade at monopoly.
But the spirit of war is still fostered and stimulated, by false ideas of national honour,
patriotism, and policy, and to the art of war we still devote our mightest efforts, and
consecrate our costliest sacrifices. The grosser forms of slavery have indeed
disappeared, but its taint is still to be traced in some of our institutions, and in our
feeling towards subject races; while our Reformed Church, with its temporalities, and
its exclusive pretensions and privileges, is still too often the enemy of the foundation
of all freedom, liberty of thought.
The last, and perhaps the most insidious, of the leading forms of spoliation,
commercial monopoly, though driven from its strongholds, and expelled from our
national creed, is still regarded by many among us with secret favour, and by most of
us rather as a political error than as a moral wrong.
It was to struggle with this last great evil that Cobden devoted his life, and it is with
the most decisive victory ever achieved in this field of conflict that his name and fame
will be always identified; but it is significant and interesting to know that, in selecting
his work in life, it was to Education, and not to Free Trade, that his thoughts were
first directed.
Two reasons decided him to prefer the latter as the object of his efforts:Firstly, his
conviction (referred to above) that the material prosperity of nations is the only
foundation of all progress, and that if this were once secured the rest would follow.
Secondly, his consciousness that no direct attempt to obtain a system of national
education which deserved the name, could lead to any clear result in the life of his
own generation, and that, measured with those at his command, imposing as were the
forces of resistance arrayed against him on the question of Free Trade, they were less
formidable than those which would be brought to bear against a measure which united
in a common hostility the Established and the Dissenting Churches.
It was Cobden's fate or fortune to find himself, in taking up the cause of Free Trade,
in the presence of one of the worst laws which the selfishness or folly of Governments
have ever imposed on the weakness or ignorance of a people.
When the soil of a country is appropriated, the only means whereby an increasing
population can limit the encroachments of the proprietors, is by working for foreign
markets. Such a population has only its labour to give in exchange for its
requirements, and, if this labour is constantly increasing, while the produce of the soil
is stationary, more of the first will steadily and progressively be demanded, for less of
the last.
This will be manifested by a fall of wages, which is, as has been well observed, the
greatest of misfortunes when it is due to natural causes the greatest of crimes when
it is caused by the law.
The Corn Law was the fitting sequel to the French war. The ruling classes in England
had seized on the reaction of feeling created by the excesses of the French Revolution,
to conceal the meaning of that event, and to discredit the principles of popular
sovereignty which it asserted. They had before them a people impoverished and
degraded by the waste of blood and treasure in which years of war had involved their
country; and seeing the prospect before them, which the peace had opened, of a fall in
the prices of agricultural produce, under the beneficent operation of the great laws of
exchange, they resorted to the device of prolonging by Act of Parliament the artificial
scarcity created by the war, and of thus preserving to the landed interest the profits
which had been gained at the expense of the nation.
It is thus that, as the forces of progress are invariably found to act and reach on each
other, the forces of resistance and of evil will ever be side by side, and that as
protection, which means the isolation of nations, tends both by its direct and indirect
effects to war, so war again engenders and perpetuates the spirit of protection. Free
Trade, or as Cobden called it, the International Law of the Almighty, which means the
interdependence of nations, must bring with it the surest guarantee of peace, and
peace inevitably leads to freer and freer commercial intercourse; and therefore, while
there is no sadder page in the modern history of England than that which records the
adoption of this law by the British Parliament, there is, to our minds, none more bright
with the promise of future good than that on which was written, after thirty years of
unjust and unnecessary suffering, its unconditional repeal.
But as the intellect and conscience of the country had failed so long to recognize the
widespread evils of this pernicious law, and the fatal principles which lay at its roots,
so did they now most dimly and imperfectly apprehend the scope and consequences
of its abolition.
It was called the repeal of a law; admitted to be the removal of an intolerable wrong;
but we doubt whether in this country, except by a few gifted and far-seeing leaders of
this great campaign, it was foreseen that it was an act which involved, in its certain
results, a reversal of the whole policy of England.
This was, however, clear enough to enlightened observers in other countries. By one
of those rare coincidents which sometimes exercise so powerful an influence of
human affairs, it happened, that while Cobden in England was bringing to bear on the
great practical questions of his time and country the principles of high morality and
sound economy which had been hitherto too little considered in connection with each
other, Frederic Bastiat was conceiving and maturing in France the system of political
philosophy which has since been given to the world, and which still remains the best
and most complete exposition of the views of which Cobden was the great
representative.
It appears to us that these two men were necessary to each other. Without Cobden,
Bastiat would have lost the powerful stimulant of practical example, and the wide
range of facts which the movement in England supplied, and from which he drew
much of his inspiration. Without Bastiat, Cobden's policy would not have been
elaborated into a system, and, beyond his own immediate coadjutors and disciples,
would probably have been most imperfectly understood on the Continent of Europe.
More than this, who can say what may not have been the effect on the minds of both
these men, of the interchange of thoughts and opinions which freely passed between
them?
In his brilliant history of the Anti-Corn-Law Leaugue, Cobden et la Ligue, Bastiat
thus describes the movement of which England was the theatre during that memorable
struggle:
I have endeavoured to state with all exactness the question which is being agitated in
England. I have described the field of battle, the greatness of the interests which are
there being discussed, the opposing forces, and the consequences of victory. I have
shown, I believe, that though the heat of contest may seem to be concentrated on
questions of taxation, of custom-houses, of cereals, of sugar, it is, in point of fact, a
question between monopoly and liberty, aristocracy and democracy a question of
equality or inequality in the distribution of the general well-being. The question at
issue is to know whether legislative power and political influence shall remain in the
hands of the men of rapine, or in those of the men of toil; that is, whether they shall
continue to embroil the world in troubles and deeds of violence, or sow the seeds of
concord, of union, of justice, and of peace.
What would be the thought of the historian who could believe that armed Europe, at
the beginning of this century, performed, under the leadership of the most able
generals, so many feats of strategy for the sole purpose of determining who should
possess the narrow fields that were the scenes of the battles of Austerlitz or of
Wagram? The fate of dynasties and empires depend on those struggles. But the
triumphs of force may be ephemeral; it is not so with the triumphs of opinion. And
when we see the whole of a great people, whose influence on the world is undoubted,
impregnate itself with the doctrines of justice and truth; when we see it repel the false
ideas of supremacy which have so long rendered it dangerous to nations; when we see
it ready to seize the political ascendant from the hands of a greedy and turbulent
oligarchylet us beware of believing, even when its first efforts seem to bear upon
economic questions, that greater and nobler interests are not engaged in the struggle.
For if, in the midst of many lessons of iniquity, many instances of national perversity,
England, this imperceptible point of our globe, has seen so many great and useful
ideas take root upon her soil if she was the cradle of the press, of trial by jury, of a
representative system, of the abolition of slavery, in spite of the opposition of a
powerful and pitiless oligarchy what may not the world expect from this same
England when all her moral, social, and political power shall have passed, by a slow
and difficult revolution, into the hands of democracy a revolution peacefully
accomplished in the minds of men under the leadership of an association which
embraces in its bosom so many men whose high intellectual power and unblemished
character shed so much glory on their country, and on the century in which they live?
Such a revolution is no simple event, no accident, no catastrophe due to an irresistible
but evanescent enthusiasm. It is, if I may use the expression, a slow social cataclysm,
changing all the conditions of life and of society, the sphere in which it lives and
breathes. It is justice possessing herself of power; good sense of authority. It is the
general weal, the weal of the people, of the masses, of the small and of the great, of
the strong and of the weak, becoming the law of political action. It is the
disappearance behind the scene of privilege, abuse, and caste-feeling, not by a palace-
revolution or a street-rising, but by the progressive and general appreciation of the
rights and duties of man. In a word, it is the triumph of human liberty; it is the death
of monopoly, that Proteus of a thousand forms, now conqueror, now slave-owner; at
one time lover of theocracy and feudalism, at another time assuming an industrial, a
commercial, a financial, and even a philanthropic shape. Whatever disguise it might
borrow, it could no longer bear the eye of public opinion, which has learned to detect
it under the scarlet uniform or under the black gown, under the planter's jacket and the
noble peer's embroidered robe. Liberty for all! for everyman a just and natural
remuneration for his labour! for every man a just and natural avenue to equality in
proportion to his energy, his intelligence, his prudence, and his morality! Free Trade
with all the world! Peace with all the world! No more subjugation of new colonies, no
more army, no more navy, than is necessary for the maintenance of national
independence! A radical distinction between that which is and that which is not the
mission of government and law; political association reduced to guarantee each man
his liberty and safety against all unjust aggressions, whether from without or from
within; equal taxation, for the purpose of properly paying the men charged with this
mission, and not to serve as a mask under the name of outlets for trade (dbouchs),
for outward usurpation, and, under the name of protection, for the mutual robbery of
classes. Such is the real issue in England, though the field of battle may be confined to
a custom-house question. But this question involves slavery in its modern form; for as
Mr.Gibson, a member of the League, has said in Parliament, To get possession of
men that we may make them work for our own profit, or to take possession of the
fruits of their labour, is equally and always slavery; there is no difference but in the
degree.
This passage, all due allowance made for the tendency to brilliant generalisation
which Bastiat shared with so many of his gifted countrymen, remains on the whole a
most powerful, condensed, and accurate analysis of the great principles involved in
the political conflict then passing in England, and is a testimony to the rare insight and
sagacity of the writer. It is affords a striking illustration of the power which a clear
and firm grasp of principles gives to the political student, in guiding his speculations
on the most complicated problems which society presents.
The system of which the Corn Laws were the corner-stone, traced to its source, rested
on the principle of spoliation, and on the foundation of force.
That which was inaugurated by the overthrow of that law, rested on the principle of
freedom, and on the foundation of justice.
Monopoly of trade, involving, as it must, the violation of rights of property and of
labour, both in the internal and external relations of a State, and implying, when
carried to its logical consequences, national isolation, contains within itself the germs
of inevitable stagnation and decay. To avoid these results, it is necessary that a
Government which maintains it should resort to all the expedients of force and fraud
to conquest, colonial aggrandisement, maritime supremacy, foreign alliances,
reciprocity treaties, and communism in the shape of poor-laws and should
perpetually appeal to the worst and most contemptible passions of its people, its
national pride, to false patriotism, to jealousy, to fear and to selfishness, in order to
keep alive its prestige and to conceal its rottenness.
We are far from imputing the marvellous skill which the ruling classes in England
displayed in the use of these expedients to a conscious and deliberate policy. We
know that good and able men, and an honest though misguided patriotism, have been
too often the blind instruments of the retributive justice which always avenges the
violation of moral principles; but there was a point beyond which even these
expedients would not suffice to arrest the national decay, and with a debt of
800,000,000, an impoverished starving people, the universal distrust, and the
avowed or concealed hostility of foreign nations, who had imitated our policy too
closely, while growing communities of our own blood, with boundless material
resources and free institutions, were outstripping us in the race of progress, and
making the future competition of force impossible, a state of things had been
engendered which called for prompt and vigorous remedy.
To Cobden, and his colleagues of the League, belongs the merit of having traced the
disease to its source, of having stayed the progress of the poison which was slowly,
but surely, undermining our national greatness, and of changing the current of English
policy.
Mr. Bright has recently told us the occasion, and the manner, of Cobden's invitation to
him to join him in this beneficent work.
At a moment of supreme domestic calamity, Cobden called on him and said, Do not
allow this grief, great as it is, to weigh you down too much. There are at this moment,
in thousands of homes of this country, wives and children who are dying in hunger, of
hunger made by the laws; if you will come along with me, we will never rest until we
have got rid of the Corn Laws. The appeal was not made in vain, and we know with
what results.
But the repeal of the Corn Laws, the false idea of isolated progress was for ever
dispelled, our foreign trade became a condition of our existence, and the great law of
international co-operation assumed its rightful place as the animating principle of our
future course.
But though the edifice of protection was shaken at the base, and the fabric irrevocally
doomed to destruction, the work was only begun: the ideas which the system had
created had taken too deep root in the minds of the governing classes, and the forces
of reaction were still too powerful to allow of speedy or logical progress.
The gradual breaking-up of the protective system after the repeal of the Corn Laws
was a work which must in any case have proceeded, under the pressure of the
irresistible force of circumstances; but we think that justice has never been done to the
Government of Lord John Russell, and his colleagues Lord Grey and Mr.Labouchere,
in this respect.
The equalisation of the Sugar Duties, the repeal of the Navigation Laws, the reform of
our Colonial System, were all accomplished by this administration, and few indeed
have been the Governments of England which can point to such substantial services
as these in the cause of progress. This course of useful domestic reform was, however,
rudely interrupted by one of those events which ought to teach us the hopelessness of
all permanent progress by isolated action, and the absolute necessity of always
considering our position as a member of the comity of nations. The Crimean War
brought once more into life and activity all the elements of the national character, the
most opposed to the silent and beneficent forces of moral and material progress,
fatally arrested the agencies of peace which the Anti-Corn-League had set in motion,
and has gone far to deprive us of the fruits of the great reforms which those agencies
had affected. In looking back, it is impossible not to feel how different might have
been our recent history, but for the mysterious dispensation, under which one great
Minister died too soon, while another ruled too long, and which removed from us, at a
time when his influence was too much needed, the wise Prince who had, we believe,
learned to value Cobden, as Cobden had learned, we know, to respect and appreciate
him.
We all remember the long parliamentary duel between Peel and Cobden, by which the
great struggle of the two contending principles of privilege and freedom was brought
to a final issue; the impressive advocacy and the imposing fallacies of the powerful
Minister; the unadorned eloquence and the pitiless logic of the tribune of the
people; and some of us remember how Cobden, as he watched night after night his
great antagonist, writhing under his unanswerable arguments, saw by the workings of
his face, long before his public avowal, that reason and conscience had done their
work, and that the victory was won.
But there was a moment when, unnerved by Drummond's tragic death, and stung by
the intention which he attributed to Cobden of wishing to fasten upon him
individually the responsibility of further resistance, he referred to some expressions in
speeches at conferences of the League in a way which made a deep impression at the
time, and which Cobden could not easily forget. He lived, indeed, to make a full
reparation, by the generous tribute which he paid to Cobden's services, in his
memorable speech on quitting office for ever, in words which have often been
repeated, and which it is well again to repeat
I said before, and I said truly, that, in proposing our measures of commercial policy,
I had no wish to deprive others of the credit justly due to them. I must say with
reference to honourable gentlemen opposite, as I say with reference to ourselves, that
neither of us is the party which is justly entitled to the credit of them. There has been
a combination of parties, generally opposed to each other, and that combination, and
the influence of Government, have led to their ultimate success; but the name which
ought to be associated with the success of those measures is not the name of the noble
lord, the organ of the party of which he is the leader, nor is it mine. The name which
ought to be, and will be, associated with the success of those measures, is the name of
one who, acting, I believe, from pure and disinterested motives, and with untiring
energy, made appeals to our reason, and has enforced those appeals with an eloquence
the more to be admired because it was unaffected and unadorned the name which
ought to be chiefly associated with the success of those measures is the name of
Richard Cobden.
It was, however, we believe, the fact that, in spite of this public testimony, no private
intercourse took place at that time between them, and the Peel retired from office,
with the execration of his party, and the gratitude of his country, and Cobden entered
on his international work, in mutual silence.
But later, when Cobden had returned to the House of Commons, and was standing one
day behind the Speaker's chair, Peel rose from his seat, and came towards him, and
said to him, holding out his hand, Mr.Cobden, the time has come, I think, for you
and me to be friends.
And still later, amidst the throng of anxious inquirers, who, in those long days of
June, besieged Whitehall, and lingered round the doors of the dying statesman, there
was no sincerer sorrower than the leader of the League.
The Royal Commission which, under Prince Albert's auspices, organised the first
great Exhibition, had brought together at last, in a common and international work,
the three men who seem to us to have been eminently designed to co-operate for the
public good, and we cannot doubt that, if the lives of Prince and Minister had been
spared a few years longer, and Peel had returned to office in 1852, he would have
received the cordial support of Cobden, either in or out of office. But this was not to
be; and in 1846, on the occasion of the repeal, to make Cobden Minister would have
been an act of political justice and wisdom for which the times were not ripe, while to
accept the subordinate office which was offered him, from men who had so recently,
and so reluctantly, espoused his views on Free Trade, and who so imperfectly
apprehended or accepted its ulterior consequences, would have fatally compromised
his future usefulness.
He knew that there were several necessary measures which the general intelligence of
the Liberal party would immediately force upon the Parliament, and his work at this
moment lay in another direction. He had been the chief instrument in giving the
death-blow to a mighty monopoly, in redressing a grievous wrong, and in giving food
to suffering millions at home. His services as an Englishman being thus far
accomplished, he entered upon his mission as an international man.
He knew, and had measured accurately, the obstacles presented by the laws of other
countries, often the too faithful reflection of our own, to the fulfillment of the grand
aim of his life, the binding together of the nations of the earth by the material bonds
which are the necessary and only preparation for their moral union. These laws has
raised around us innumerable barriers to intercourse, and as many stumbling-blocks in
the way of peace.
In a tour through Europe, which often resembled a triumphal progress, he was
everywhere received with interest and attention; but the sudden recantation of a
policy, bound up with all the traditions of England, was open to too much suspicion to
inspire confidence, and he was obliged to be content with sowing the seeds of much
which has since borne fruit, and with inspiring new zeal and hope in the minds of the
good and enlightened men who, in each center which he visited, were labouring in the
cause.
No stronger proof can be afforded of the fundamental misconception of Cobden's
political character which had prevailed in England than the judgments and criticisms
which it was the custom to pass upon him with reference to the class of questions to
which he addressed himself on his return to public life at home.
It seems to have been expected that he would exclusively devoted himself to
commercial questions, and when it was found that he proceeded to attack
systematically our foreign policy, our system of government in India, our national
expenditure, our military and naval administration, and our maritime laws, he was
accused of going beyond his province, and discredited as an enthusiast incapable of
dealing with the great mysteries of statecraft.
Those who used this language either knew too well, or not at all, that Cobden aimed at
something very different and very much deeper than mere commercial reforms.
In each and all of these he took, as was natural, a sincere and consistent interest, but
he knew, unless aided and consolidated by collateral measures, that incalculable as
would be the results to the wealth and prosperity of the country, they would not
suffice to raise the lower classes of this country from their condition of moral and
material degradation, and thus to rescue England from the reproach of failure in the
highest ends of civilisation, and to assure for her a permanent place in the front rank
of nations.
It was, therefore, that, instead of entangling himself in the snares of office, and
devoting his time to the details of practical legislation, he undertook the harder and
more ungrateful, but far nobler office, of endeavouring to open the eyes of his
countrymen to the necessity under which they lay of preparing for fundamental
changes in many of the essential principles upon which our national policy had
previously been conducted, in its three great divisions Foreign, Colonial, and
Domestic.
Cobden saw clearly that, unless our system of government, in all its branches, were
adapted to the altered conditions of our national existence, not only would our
commercial reforms be shorn of their most valuable and complete results in the
elevation of the masses of the people, but that we should also incur the risk of very
serious dangers. Nothing is so fatal to success in the life of individuals or of nations as
a confusion of principles in action.
Under the system of monopoly, it was logical enough to keep alive the chimra of the
balance of power, to seek, in foreign alliances and artificial combinations of force, the
security which we could not hope to derive from legitimate and natural causes. In the
government of our foreign possessions, it was logical to annex provinces and extend
our empire, and by the display of force and the arts of diplomacy to coerce and
despoil; and for both these purposes, it was necessary to maintain costly and imposing
forces by sea and land, and to cast on the people the burden of the proportionate
taxation.
By means such as these we might have prolonged, for two or three generations, a false
and hollow supremacy, and warded off for a while the inevitable doom which awaits
all false principles.
But with a policy of free exchange, these things are not only inconsistent, they are
dangerous.
They are inconsistent, because a policy of Free Trade rests on the principle that the
interests of all nations lie in union and not in opposition; that co-operation and not
competition, international interdependence and not national independence, are the
highest end and object of civilisation, and that, therefore, peace, and not war, is the
natural and normal condition of civilized communities in their relation to each other.
They are dangerous, because a country which is unable to feed its own population
without its foreign trade, and of whose prosperity, and even existence, peace is thus a
necessary condition, cannot afford, without tremendous risks, to encounter the
hazards of war with powerful enemies. If such a country trusts to the law of force, by
that law will it be judged, and the result must by crushing failure, disaster, and
ultimate defeat. There were those who clearly foresaw and apprehended this, and
deprecated the repeal of the Corn Law accordingly, but who did not perceive that the
alternative was an inadequate supply of food for a third our population.
From this point of view, the balance of power can only be sought in the free
development of the natural forces, whether of morality, intelligence, or material
wealth, residing in the different countries of the earth, and the balance will always be
held (to use the expression of William III., in his address to parliament, quoted by
Mr.Cobden in his paper on Russia), so far as any one State can pretend to do so, by
the country which, in proportion to its powers, has economised its material resources
to the highest point, and acquired the highest degree of moral ascendancy by an
honest and consistent allegiance to the laws of morality in its domestic policy and in
its foreign relations.
The acquisition of colonies and territories, formerly required to afford new fields for
monopoly, and defended on the plea that outlets were necessary for our trade, while
our ports were closed to our nearest and richest neighbours, appeared in its true light
as a waste of national influence, and a costly and useless perversion of national
wealth, when all the countries of the earth became our customers, and England the
metropolitan entrept of the world.
Large standing armies and navies, with their necessary accompaniment of heavy, and
because heavy, unequal, and indirect taxation, are only rational in countries which are
constantly liable to war, and cannot therefore be equally required under a system
which relies on moral influence and on international justice, as under one which
depends on force and monopoly.
To summon into existence a principle, which in all human relations shall assert the
right of property, in mind and in matter, in thought and in labour, and to secure this
right on its true foundation the universal rule of justice and freedom is to evoke a
force which is destined to root up and destroy the seeds of discord and division among
men; to bind up the nations of the earth in a vast federation of interests; and to bring
the disorders of conflicting passions of society under the domain of law.
To promote all the agencies through which this force can act, and to repress all those
which oppose its progress and neutralise its operation, and for this purpose to analyse
and expose to view these several agencies, both in their causes and in their effects
eternally acting and reacting on each other, was the task which Cobden set himself to
accomplish.
It was inevitable, with these objects in view, that Cobden was often obliged to raise
discussion upon questions which, to ordinary minds, appear somewhat chimerical and
to propose measures which were in the nature of things premature; that he should give
to many the impression of wasting his strength on matters which could not be brought
to an immediate practical issue, and in the agitation of which he could not hope for
direct success.
It will be found, however, that although there often existed no possibility of realising
or applying his projects at the time of their enunciation, these were always themselves
of an essentially practical character, and inseparably connected with each other; and
that, although presented as occasion served, from time to time, and as the nature of his
mission required, in a fragmentary and separate form, they each and all formed the
component parts of a policy coherent and complete, and destined, we trust, to a
gradual but ultimate fulfilment.
In characterising this policy as complete, one exception must be made.
There was one branch of the national economy on which Cobden's views were not, at
least, in his earlier years, in accordance with what appears to us sound scientific
doctrine. We refer to the laws for the regulation of a paper currency.
In his evidence before the Committee of the House of Commons on Banks of Issue,
1840, he virtually adheres to the main principle of the Bank Act of 1844, and
advocates the limitation of all paper issues unrepresented by a corresponding amount
of gold to a fixed amount issuable on securities. This view arises, we think, from our
imperfect apprehension of the nature and functions of credit, and of the law of value.
We cannot but think, therefore, that if Cobden retained it in his later years it must be
attributed to the absorbing character of his practical labours, which precluded the
possibility of a deeper and more scientific investigation of a subject confessedly
among the most complex problems in the range of economic speculation.
The Programme which Cobden appears to have set before him in the construction of a
policy embraced the following objects:
1. Complete freedom of trade throughout the British Empire with all the
world, exclusive for the present (as a practical necessity) of restrictions
indispensably requisite for fiscal purposes.
2. The final and unqualified abandonment of a policy of conquest and
territorial aggrandisement in every quarter of the world.
3. The adoption of the general principles of non-intervention and arbitration
in our foreign policy, publicity in all the transactions of diplomacy, and the
renunciation of all ideas of national preponderance and supremacy.
4. The reduction of military and naval forces by international cooperation.
5. A large reduction of taxation.
6. A reform in the laws affecting land.
7. Freedom of the press from all taxes, happily stigmatized by Mr. Milner
Gibson as taxes on knowledge.
8. A reform of maritime law.
We do not include in this programme the two great measures of National Education
and Parliamentary Reform because, although essential to the progress and security of
government, and as much of course enlisting Cobden's sympathy, they are, after all,
the means and not the end of good government; and we are disposed to think that he
felt that his peculiar powers could be more usefully devoted to the assertion of the
principles on which governments should be conducted than to the construction of the
machinery out of which they should be elaborated. We will endeavour to give briefly
an outline of what appear to have been Cobden's views on the leading divisions of
national policy which the foregoing programme was designed to affect. We have said
that the central idea of the national policy represented by Cobden was Free
Exchange in the most comprehensive meaning of that term as the necessary
complement of personal freedom, and the full assertion of the rights of property and
labour. The realisation of this idea logically involves all the consequences which
Cobden aimed at promoting by direct or indirect efforts.
Foreign Policy. In the field of foreign policy these consequences were immediate
and obvious. The principles of foreign policy under a system of monopoly is national
independence in other words, isolation; under that of free exchange it is
international interdependence. We have already observed upon the bearing of this
latter principle on the doctrine of the balance of power, and pointed out the
fundamental difference between a policy which proceeds on principles of
international morality, and appeals to the common interests of all nations of the earth,
and one which rests on ideas of national supremacy and rivalry. But in the practical
application of the Free Trade foreign policy, there has been so much
misunderstanding of Cobden's views, and, as we think, so much confusion of thought
even among advanced Liberals that a few further remarks may be useful. This policy
is ordinarily characterised by the name of non-intervention. In some respects this
designation has been an unfortunate one. It has given colour to the idea that what was
desired was a blind and selfish indifference to the affairs of other countries, and a sort
of moral isolation, as foreign to the principle of international interdependence as it is
impossible in connection with increased material intercourse.
Cobden never, so far as we are aware, advanced or held the opinion that wars other
than those undertaken for self-defence were in all cases wrong or inexpedient.
The question, as we apprehend it, was with him one of relative duties. It is clear that
the duty and wisdom of entering upon a war, even in defence of the most righteous
cause, must be measured by our knowledge and by our power; but, even where our
knowledge is complete and our power sufficient, it is necessary that, in undertaking
such a war, we should be satisfied that, in doing so, we are not neglecting and putting
it out of our reach, to fulfil more sacred and more imperative duties.
The cases are rare in the quarrels of other nations, still rarer in their internal
dissensions, in which our knowledge of their causes and conditions, and our power of
enforcing the right, and assuring its success, in any degree justifies us in armed
interferencethe last resort in the failure of human justice.
But even if these difficult conditions of our justification in such a war were satisfied,
the cases must be rare indeed in which, with a population of which so large a part is
barely receiving the means of decent existence, and another part is supported by
public charity at the expense of the rest, and at a charge of nearly 10,000,000 per
annum, this country would be justified in imposing on our labouring classes (on
whom, be it remembered, the burden must chiefly fall) the cost of obtaining for
another people a degree of freedom or a measure of justice which they have so
imperfectly secured for themselves.
Such a course is certainly not defensible unless the people have a far larger share in
the government of their country than they possessed during Cobden's life in England.
When we add to these considerations the singular inaptitude of the governing classes
of this country to comprehend foreign affairs, the extraordinary errors which are
usually to be observed in their judgments, and opinions on foreign questions, and the
dangerous liability to abuse in the hands of any government, of the doctrine of Blood
and Iron, even if it be sometimes invoked in a just cause, we shall, we think (without
asserting that it must be inflexibly enforced), acknowledge the sober wisdom of
Cobden's opinion, that, for all practical purposes, at least for this generation, the
principle of non-intervention should be made, as far as general principles can be
applied to such questions, the rule of our foreign policy.
Let those who sneer at what they consider a sordid and ungenerous view, reflect on
the history of the past, and ask themselves what is to be the hope of humanity if the
motives which have hitherto regulated the policy of our country are in future to
determine the intercourse of nations.
Let them look back upon the great French war, not as it is interpreted by Cobden in
his most instructive paper in the work before us, but read by the light of those teachers
of history who see in it a proud record of England's glory and power in vindicating the
liberties of mankind, and satisfy their conscience, if they can, of the righteousness of a
cause which required the aid of Holy Alliances, the legions of despots, and a
campaign which terminated in the Congress of Vienna, and which ended in the
suffocation of popular rights for half a century, the enactment of the English Corn
Law and all that it represents, and a condition of Europe which even now almost
precludes the hope of real civilisation.
Colonial Policy.There is no branch of the national economy in which the neglect of
Cobden's principles has led to more glaring and lamentable results than in that
between the mother country and what are called its foreign possessions. The
inability even of the Government which was borne to power on the shoulders of the
AntiCorn-Law League to apprehend the scope and importance of Free Trade is in no
direction more strikingly manifested than in the colonial policy.
Would it not have been possible, when the right of self-government was conferred
upon our colonial possessions, to have stipulated, as a necessary condition, and as a
great and fundamental rule of imperial policy, the complete absence of protection
throughout the dominions of the Crown?
Instead of this, the most confused idea prevailed, and still prevails, as to the limits of
colonial self-government in adopting a commercial policy, opposed to the principles
and interests of the mother country.
The colonies have been allowed to impose protective duties on British manufactures,
and of those of foreign countries; but they are not allowed to discriminate between the
two. They are allowed to protect: would they be allowed to prohibit? for it must be
remembered that protection, so far as it restricts a trade, is nothing more nor less than
prohibition to that extent; and if not to prohibit, where is the line to be drawn, at
duties at 20, or 30, or 50, or 100 per cent.?
Again, the colonies are allowed to tax and restrict our trade, but are compelled to give
perfect freedom to our ships, both in their foreign and coasting trades, and then, as if
to destroy and efface all trace and remnant of principle in our policy, they are
compelled to admit foreign ships in their foreign trade, but allowed to exclude them
from their coasting trade (thus violating the rule of equality between British and
foreign trade laid down with respect to goods), but are not allowed to admit them to
that trade on less favourable terms than British ships: in other words, they are allowed
to inflict the greater, but not the less, injustice!
Can any conceivable confusion be more hopelessly confounded?
Does self-government apply to trade and not to shipping? Does it apply to a coast
trade and not to a foreign trade? And is it not out of place to talk of self-government at
all, as a principle, when every Colonial Act must be sanctioned by the Crown before it
becomes law?
The truth is that we have here another instance of the evil effects of a displacement or
dislocation of responsibility.
It is clear that the right of absolute self-government involves the corresponding duty
of self-support and self-defence; and as the colonies are far from having undertaken
the latter, it is surely not too much to call them to admit such a degree of interference
with their self-government as imperial interests require.
It is estimated that the military and naval expenses borne for the colonies by the
mother country amount to 6,000,000 a yearmore than the revenue derived from
our sugar duties! If such sacrifices as these are imposed on the British taxpayer, has
he not a right to be allowed to trade on equal terms with his colonial fellow-subjects?
Cobden never lost an opportunity of protesting against this last misappropriation of
the money of the old country, and of exposing the secret connection of this feature in
our policy, which the perpetuation of pretexts for increased armaments.
But to return to our commercial policy. Has a colonial Minister ever asked himself
what is the difference between entering into a compact with a foreign Government for
the regulation of international trade, and entering into a similar compact with a
colonial government? Does the fact that the first would probably be recorded in a
treaty and the second in an Act of Parliament affect the essence of the agreement, and
render the one a legitimate and the other an illegitimate form of international action?
If so, it would be better that our colonies should become in reality, as well as in name,
foreign possessions, so that we might than be allowed to treat with them.
It is painful to think of the contrast between our present position and prospects as a
nation, and that which it might have presented, had the foundations of our colonial
empire been laid broad and deep in commercial freedom. Is it yet too late? Is no effort
yet possible towards such a consummation?
Eastern Policy.The British rule in India was to Cobden a subject of the deepest
anxiety and apprehension. His paper in the present volumes entitled, How Wars are
got up in India, is an honest and indignant criticism upon an episode in our Indian
history which has only too many parallels, and gives expression to one of his
strongest convictions, viz., the retribution which one day awaits the lust of power and
of territorial aggrandizement, and the utter disregard of morality so often exhibited in
our dealings with the races of this great dependency. But in our Eastern policy much
progress has been made since Cobden's time, and we have seen, we trust, the dawn of
a better day in the administration of Lord Lawrence in India, and in the policy of Sir
F.Bruce at Pekin.
Reduction of Military and Naval Expenditure.The changes advocated by Cobden in
our foreign and colonial policy necessarily involved a large reduction in our military
and naval establishments, and to this object his most strenuous efforts were constantly
directed; but here the difficulties which he had to encounter were enormous, and the
Crimean War and its results throughout Europe have rendered all attempts at reform
in this branch of our national economy hitherto unavailing.
In attacking our Services he not only had to content against powerful interests
connected with almost all the families of the upper and middle classes of the country,
but also against many honest, though mistaken, opinions, as to the causes of national
greatness and the sources of our power. It was the widespread prevalence of such
opinions, combined with the selfish influence of the worst element in British
commerce, which led, on the occasion of the Chinese War in 1857, to the rejection of
Cobden by the West Riding, and of Bright and Gibson by Manchester. The class of
ideas symbolised by the British Lion, the Sceptre of Britannia, and the Civis
Romanus, irrational and vulgar as they are, have nevertheless a side which is not
altogether ignoble, and are of a nature which it requires more than one generation to
eradicate.
Cobden approached this question of reduction by two different roads. He endeavoured
to bring to bear upon it international action, by arrangements for a general limitation
of armaments, in which, as regards France, there appeared more than once some
possibility of success, and in which he was cordially supported by Bastiat in the years
succeeding the repeal of the Corn Laws; he also sought, be every means in his power,
to urge it on his countrymen, by appeals to their good sense and self-respect. He
exposed, firstly, our policy; and secondly, our administration; and showed, with
irresistible arguments, that, while the one was unsound, the other was extravagant;
and that thus the British people were condemned, not only to provide for what was
useless and even dangerous, but at the same time to pay an excessive price for it.
He tells us in his article on Russia, vol. i. p. 309
If that which constitutes cowardice in individuals, viz., the taking excessive
precautions against danger, merits the same designation when practised by
communities, then England certainly must rank as the greatest poltroon among
nations.
It is incontestable that the extent of our precautions against danger should be
proportioned to the degree of that danger, and it cannot, we think, be denied, even
those who are the most disposed to connect the greatness and security of England with
the constant display of physical force, that as our liability to war has diminished, our
preparations for it should also diminish; and that it is as irrational to devote to our
Services in a period of Free Trade, colonial self-government, and non-
intervention, the sums which were wrung from our industry in an epoch of monopoly,
of colonial servitude, and of a spirited foreign policy, as it would be to pay the same
insurance on a healthy as on a diseased life.
For what are the causes (under here own control) which render a country liable to
war?
They may, for present purposes, be classed under the following heads:
1. The disposition to engage in wars of conquest or aggression.
2. The necessity of maintaining, for the purpose of repressing liberty at home,
large standing armies, which a Government may be compelled to employ in
foreign wars, either to gratify the military spirit engendered by the existence
of a powerful service, or to divert public attention from domestic reforms.
3. The habitual violation of the rights of labour and property in international
relations, by prohibitive and protective laws of trade.
4. The policy of providing outlets for trade, and of introducing what are
called the agencies of civilisation, by means of consuls and missionaries,
supported by gunboats and breech-loaders.
5. The pretension of holding the balance of power, and of interfering, with
this object, in the affairs of other nations, with its result, the theory of armed
diplomacy, which aims, by a display of force, at securing for a country what
is assumed to be its due influence in foreign affairs.
All these motives would be absolutely removed under a system of government such as
that which Cobden advocated, and even now, they are, we believe, very generally
discredited, with the exception, perhaps, of the last, which must, however, be so cut
down and modified in order to be a pretext for military armaments, as to lose its
general character, and to require re-statement. The doctrine of the balance of power
is, we hope, consigned to the limbo of exploded fallacies, with the balance of trade,
and we refer any remaining believers in the balancing system to the history and
analysis of this phenomenon, in the essay on Russia in the work before us, as we think
it cannot fail to dispel any lingering faith in this delusion.
With the rejection of the doctrines of the balance of power, a fruitful source of
dangerous meddling in the affairs of foreign countries has been cut away. There only
remains, therefore, the limited form of armed interference in foreign affairs to which
we have already adverted, and which it is still thought by many among us, and even
by a large section of the Liberal party we should be prepared to exert in certain
events, and for which, if the principle be admitted, some allowance must be made in
estimating the extent of our military and naval requirements.
We refer to the supposed duty of England to resort to war in possible cases for the
purpose of defending the principles of free government or international law, or of
protecting a foreign country from wanton or unjust aggression. On this subject we
have already stated what we believe to have been Cobden's view; but, whatever
margin may be left for this consideration, it must be admitted by candid reasoners,
that the liability of the country to war under a policy such as that of which the general
outlines have been traced, would be reduced within narrow proportions.
Cobden was often blamed for not devoting more time and labour to the task of minute
resistance to the Estimates in the House of Commons. This was the result of his
perfect conviction, after years of experience and observation, that such a course was
absolutely useless, and that no private member, however able or courageous, could
cope in detail with the resources at the disposal of Government in evading exposure
and resisting reductions. He therefore always insisted that the only course was to
strike at the root of the evil, by diminishing the revenue and the expenditure in the
gross.
Taxation.This brings us to our next topic, which is inextricably bound up with the
last, viz., the reduction of the national expenditure, and the consequent diminution of
taxation, objects the importance of which is becoming yearly more vital. Cobden
knew that no material reform in our financial system could be effected (for all that has
been hitherto done has been to shift the burden, and not to diminish it) until our
external policy was changed, and hence his incessant efforts in this direction; but he
also knew that the surest method of accomplishing the latter object was to diminish
the resources at the disposal of Government for military and naval purposes.
The first object in financial reform was, therefore, in Cobden's opinion, the gradual
remission of indirect taxation.
In a letter to the Liverpool Association he made use of the remarkable expression
that he considered them to be the only body of men in the country who appeared to
have any faith in the future of humanity.
His objects were threefold, and they are to our mind conclusive:
1.1. The dangerous facilities which they afford for extravagant and excessive
expenditure, by reason of their imperceptibility in collection, and of the
consequent readiness of the people to submit to them, and also of the
impossibility of insuring a close and honest adaptation of the revenue to the
expenditure.
2.2. Their interference with the great law of free exchange, one of the rights
of property, and (so far as customs duties are concerned) the violation of
international equity which they involve; for it is obvious that the conditions of
international trade are essentially affected by taxes on imports and exports,
and it is impossible to apportion them so as to insure that each country shall
pay neither more nor less than its own due share.
3.3. The enhancement of the cost of the taxed article to the consumer, over
and above the amount of the tax.
The root of the evil may again be traced to the infringement in the case of indirect
taxes, of the great law of free exchange of services, freely debated. A tax is nothing
more than a service contributed to the State by the people, in return for a
corresponding service rendered to the people by the State. The great object, therefore,
in imposing a tax should be to connect it as closely as possible with the service for
which it is required, and to facilitate as far as possible a close comparison between the
two. The superiority of a direct tax, like the income-tax and the poor-rate, over taxes
on consumption and on trade, from this point of view, is apparent; but such is the
distorted view of large classes in the country on this subject, that they consider what
we have characterised as the great vice of indirect taxation, as its chief and
distinguishing merit, and that the supreme art of government consists in extracting
from the pockets of the people, by a sort of hocus pocus, the largest possible
amount of money without their knowing it.
Do those who with so much navet repeat this argument whenever this question is
discussed, ever reflect, that to drug the taxpayer before he pays his money will in no
degree diminish the evil to a country, of excessive taxation, and that ignorance and
irresponsibility are not the best securities for an efficient and conscientious
administration of our public affairs?
If it be objected that indirect taxation is the only method by which the masses of the
people can be made to contribute their share to the revenues of the State, we replay,
that if the condition of the masses of the people in any country is such as to place
them beyond the reach of direct taxation, it is the surest proof that the whole national
economy is out of joint, and that, in some form or other, resort will be had to
communism. In England we have too clear and disastrous evidence of this in our
Poor Law system, and in our reckless and prodigal almsgiving. In withholding from
our children the bread of justice, we have given them the stone of enforced and
sapless charity.
We hail, therefore, with pleasure the movement which is beginning in Germany and
Belgium, in favour of a gradual abolition of all customs duties; and are convinced that
there is none, perhaps, among all the articles of the Liberal creed which, both in its
direct and indirect effects, contains the promise of so much future good.
The fulfilment of this policy should, we think, be rigorously exacted from every
Liberal Government, till no tax of customs or excise remain upon the statute-book,
save those on tobacco and spirits, which our heritage of debt has placed it beyond the
pale of hope to remove by any scheme of practical and proximate reform.
Land.Cobden held that the growing accumulation, in the hands of fewer and fewer
proprietors, of the soil of the country, was a great political, social, and economical
evil, and as this tendency is unquestionably stimulated by the system of our
government, and some of our laws, which give it an artificial value, he foresaw that
one of the principal tasks of the generation which succeeded him, must be to liberate
the land from all the unnecessary obstacles which impede its acquisition and natural
distribution, and to place it under the undisturbed control of the economic law.
We cannot here attempt to enter upon a due examination of the causes which in this
country neutralise and subvert this law in the case of landed property, but the general
principle involved may be very shortly suggested.
The more abundant the supply of land in a country, the cheaper, caeteris paribus, will
it be, the larger will be the return to the capital and labour expended on it, and the
greater the profits to be divided between them.
It is obvious that laws which keep land out of the marketlaws of entail, laws of
settlement, difficulties of transfer, as well as a system of government which gives to
the possession of land an artificial value, for social or political purposes, over and
above its natural commercial valuemust have the inevitable effect of restricting the
quantity, of enhancing the price, and of diminishing the product to be obtained. Land
thus acquires a monopoly price, small capitals are deterred from this form of
investment, competition is restricted, production is diminished, and the condition of
those who live by the land, as well as of those who exchange the produce of their
labour for the produce of the land, is necessarily impaired.
To illustrate our meaning by an extreme case: let us suppose that the State were to
connect with property in land the highest titles and privileges, on the condition that it
was entirely diverted from all productive uses, and kept solely for purposes of
ornament and sport, and that the honours and advantages so conferred were
sufficiently tempting to induce many persons to accept these conditions. It must
follow that the stock of available land in such a country would be diminished to
whatever extent it was so appropriated, and its material resources proportionately
reduced.
In a less degree, who can deny that these causes are operating among us, and are a
source of incalculable loss and waste of the national wealth? The suggestion last year
that our coal-beds would be exhausted in one hundred years, almost startled
Parliament from its propriety. Yet we acquiesce year after year, without a murmur, in
a curtailment of our supply of land, and those who warn us of our danger are
denounced as the agents of revolution.
In his speech at Rochdale, in November, 1864, which was his last public utterance,
Cobden especially left this task as a legacy to the younger men among us, and told
them that they could do more for their country in liberating the land than had been
achieved for it in the liberation of its trade.
Maritime Laws.On the question of Maritime law, it is well known that he
advocated the largest extension of the rights of neutrals, and the greatest possible
limitation of the rights of belligerents, as a necessary and logical accompaniment of a
Free Trade policy.
His views on this subject will be seen from a letter addressed to Mr. H. Ashworth, in
1862, in which he recommends the following three reforms:
1. Exemption of private property from capture at sea during war by armed
vessels of every kind.
2. Blockades to be restricted to naval arsenals, and to towns besieged at the
same time by land, except as regards contraband of war.
3. The merchant ships of neutrals on the high seas to be inviolable to the
visitation of alien Government vessels in time of war as in time of peace.
In this letter he observes
Free trade, in the widest definition of the term, means only the division of labour by
which the productive powers of the whole earth are brought into mutual co-operation.
If this scheme of universal independence is to be liable to sudden dislocation
whenever two Governments choose to go to war, it converts a manufacturing industry
such as ours into a lottery, in which the lives and fortunes of multitudes of men are at
stake. I do not comprehend how any British statesman who consults the interests of
his country and understands the revolution which Free Trade is effecting in the
relations of the world, can advocate the maintenance of commercial blockades. If I
shared their views I should shrink from promoting the indefinite growth of a
population whose means of subsistence would be liable to be cut off at any moment
by a belligerent power, against whom we should have no right of resistance, or even
of complaint.
It must be in mere irony that the advocates of such a policy as this askOf what use
would our navy be in case of war if commercial blockades were abolished. Surely, for
a nation that has no access to the rest of the world but by sea, and a large part of
whose population is dependent for food on foreign countries, the chief use of a navy
should be to keep open its communications, not to close them!
I will only add that I regard these changes as the necessary corollary of the repeal of
the Navigation Laws, the abolition of the Corn Laws, and the abandonment of our
colonial monopoly. We have thrown away the sceptre of force, to confide in the
principles of freedomuncovenanted, unconditional freedom. Under the new rgime
our national fortunes have prospered beyond all precedent. During the last fourteen
years the increase in our commerce has exceeded its entire growth during the previous
thousand years of reliance on force, cunning, and monopoly. This should encourage
us to go forward in the full faith that every fresh impediment removed from the path
of commerce, whether by sea or land, and whether in peace or war, will augment our
prosperity, at the same time that it will promote the general interests of humanity.
In most of the foregoing questions, Cobden, as we have said, was contented to preach
sound doctrine, and to prepare the way for the ultimate adoption of principles of
policy and government, which in his time he could not hope to see prevail.
But he was destined, before the close of his career, once more to engage in a great
practical work, and to identify his name with an accomplished success, scarcely
inferior in its scope and results to the repeal of the English Corn Law.
This was the Commercial Treaty with France.
As the Corn Law was the great stronghold of monopoly in England, so was the
prohibitive system in France the key-stone of protection in Europe, and Cobden
selected these accordingly, with the unerring instinct of real statesmanship, as the first
points for attack, and fastened upon them with a tenacity and resolution which insured
success.
Fifteen years had elapsed since England has renounced, in principle at least, the false
system of commercial monopoly, and, in Cobden's words quoted above, throw away
the sceptre of force, to confide in freedom.
She had trusted to the teaching of her example, and to the experience of hear
extraordinary success, in leading the countries of Europe to answer to her appeal for
co-operation in liberating trade, and vindicating the rights of labour; but she had met
with slight response.
Our conversion was perhaps too recent, our course still too inconsistent, and our
motives too much open to suspicion, to make this surprising, and, so far as France was
concerned, we had unfortunately contrived in all our reforms to retain in our tariff
restrictions upon the staple articles of French production, wine and silk.
The time had come when, unless some new impulse could be given to international
intercourse, the forces of reaction might have again acquired the ascendency, and
European progress have been thrown back for years.
Our relations with France were those of chronic distrust and rivalry. The cry of
Perfide Albion in France too often resounded in our ears; and the bugbear of French
invasion was successively invoked on this side of the Channel no less than three times
in the period we are considering.
This was a state of things fraught with danger. Monopoly had borne as usual its
deadly fruits, in alienating two great nations destined by nature for the closest
relations of friendship and mutual dependence, and in fostering in both the spirit of
war.
It was under circumstances such as these that Cobden set his hand to the great work of
co-operation which led to the Commercial Treaty.
Bastiat, who would have hailed with delight this tardy reparation of the defects in our
reformed commercial system which he always deplored, was no longer alive to aid the
cause; but to one of the most distinguished of modern French economists, Michel
Chevalier, is due, in concert with Cobden, the merit of the scheme with the
Governments of England and France were induced to adopt, which has opened to us
the prospect of a new era of progress, in the gradual union of the nations of Europe in
a great commercial confederation, and in laying the foundations of a civilisation,
which may yet keep pace with that now dawning on our race in the Anglo-Saxon
republics of the Western world.
It was pleasant to see how his old friends rallied around him on this occasion, and
how many, who had been often unable to comprehend or follow him in his political
career, rejoiced to see him once again in the field, against his old enemy, Protection.
But, on the other hand, he was assailed by an influential class among us with a bitter
animosity, which all but made his task impossible, and which revealed too clearly the
strength and vitality of the reactionary forces still at work in our midst.
As Cobden saw in his beneficent work the hope of a new era of peace, and of liberal
progress in Europe, as its certain fruit, so did his opponents instinctively perceive that
his success would carry with it the doom of the traditions of hatred and of fear, which
the Governments of Europe had too often successfully invoked, to plunge the people
into wars of which they are the invariable victims, and to keep alive the rumours of
war, which have deprived them of the solid fruits of peace.
So long as the political condition of Europe is such as to render necessary or possible
the large armaments, which are a reproach to our age and boasted civilisation, while
4,000,000 men, in the flower of their age, are taken from productive industry, and
supported by the labour of the rest of the population, no real and permanent progress
can be made in the emancipation of the people, and in the establishment of free
institutions.
At the time of which we are speaking, even still more than at present, all direct
attempts to mitigate this monster evil appeared hopeless; and although Cobden never
ceased to urge, both in England and France, the wisdom of a mutual understanding,
with a view to reduced armaments, he knew that the only certain and available
method of undermining this fatal system, and preparing for its ultimate over throw,
was to assist in every way the counter-agencies of peace.
It was in the consciousness that by breaking down the barriers to commercial
intercourse between England and France, a greater impulse would be given than by
any other event to the forces of progress in Europe, that the men who in both
countries undertook and completed this international work entered upon their task.
We have said that the time has not arrived when it is possible to speak freely of this
episode in Cobden's life, but it is necessary to vindicate his policy from charges,
which, although forgotten and overwhelmed in its extraordinary success, were
brought against it too commonly, and from quarters whence it ought least to have
been expected, at the time.
In France he was reproached by many of his earlier friends, whose sympathies were
bound up with the Orleanist or Republican rgimes, and who viewed with a natural
aversion the Second Empire, for contributing to a work which, if successful, might do
more than anything else to consolidate the Imperial reign. He replied, that what the
immediate effect might be he neither knew nor cared, but that all the forces of
freedom were 'solidaires, and that the ruler who gave Free Trade to the nation,
whether King, President, or Emperor, was doing that which, more than anything else,
would assure the future liberties of France.
The same causes operated in many quarters to make the Treaty unpopular in England;
but he was also assailed in a more insidious form. He was accused of having forgotten
or forsaken the sound doctrines of political economy, of which he had in his earlier
life been the uncompromising advocate, and of having revived the discarded policy of
reciprocity treaties.
It would perhaps be unnecessary to revert to this charge, were it not that a suspicion
of unsoundness still lurks in many minds as to the principles of the French, and
subsequent, Treaties of Commerce. It may be well, therefore, to say that, so far as this
charge was honest, and something more than a convenient method of discrediting a
measure which it was desired to obstruct, it proceeded on a very imperfect knowledge
of the policy of the Treaty, and on an erroneous and confused idea of the principles of
Free Trade itself.
The system of reciprocity treaties and tariff bargains was one of the natural but most
pernicious developments of the doctrine of protection. The most notorious of such
treaties in our history is, perhaps, the famous Methuen Treaty, from the effects of
which we are still suffering in England, in the shape of adulterated wine. These
arrangements aimed at the extension of the limits of monopoly, by securing for our
products protection in a foreign country, against the competition of all other countries,
and always proceeded on the supposed interest of the producer, to the injury of the
consumer. They were logical, when it was believed or professed that the reduction of
a duty was a sacrifice on the part of the country making it to the country in whose
favour it was made. From this point of view, it was natural, in making such
reductions, to demand what were thought to be equivalent concessions from the
country with which we were treating, and the supreme art of negotiating was held to
consist in framing what had the appearance of a nicely adjusted balance of
equivalents, but in which each country secretly desired, and sought to obtain, the
maximum of reductions from the other, against the minimum of its own.
But from the Free Trade point of view, in which all reductions of duties, at least so far
as productive duties are concerned, are an admitted and positive gain to the country
making them, it becomes absurd and impossible to use them as the ground of a claim
on a foreign country for compensating or equivalent remissions.
The French Treaty had no affinity, except in form, to treaties such as these.
Instead of a bargain in which each party sought to give as little and to get as much as
possible, it was a great work of co-operation, in which the Governments of England
and of France were resolved, on both sides, to remove, within the limits of their
power, the artificial obstacles to their commercial intercourse presented by fiscal and
protective laws.
England had already spontaneously advanced much further than France in this
direction, and hence alone, if for no other reason, all idea of equivalent concessions
was out of the question, She contributed her share to the work, by sweeping from her
tariff, with some trifling exceptions, all trace and remnant of protection, and by
reducing her fiscal duties upon wine and brandy.
France, unable at one stroke to destroy the whole fabric of monopoly, nevertheless
made a deadly breach in the edifice, by substituting moderate duties for prohibition, in
the case of the chief British exports.
If these reforms had been made exclusively in each other's favour, they might have
been justly open to the charge of unsoundness, but they were made equally for the
commerce of all the world, on the side of England immediately, on the side of France
prospectively, and thus, instead of reverting to a system of monopoly, the prohibitive
and differential policy of France was annihilated, and the equal system of England
maintained and consolidated.
There were, however, two objections made to the treaty of a more plausible kind, and
which we will, therefore, briefly notice:
First, that a work of this description need not assume the form of a treaty, which tends
to disguise its real character, but should be left to the independent legislation of each
country.
Secondly, that, although it might be well to abolish protective duties by this method, it
was impolitic to fetter ourselves by treaty with respect to fiscal duties.
As regards the first objection, it is sufficient to reply, that at the time we are
considering, for political reasons, a treaty was the only form in which such a measure
could be carried in France; but a more permanent justification is to be found in the
fact that a treaty is nothing more than an international statute-law, and that, in a matter
of international concern, it is necessary that there should exist an international
guarantee of permanence. Without such a security, what would be the condition of
trade?
The second objection is more subtle, but has no better foundation. A tax which, from
whatever cause, dries up an important source of national wealth, and thus takes from
the fund available for taxation more than the amount gained by the revenue, is a bad
tax, and ought never, if possible, to be imposed or maintained.
The tax on French wine and spirits had the effect of restricting most injuriously one of
the most important branches of our foreign trade, and would, if maintained, have
deprived us, by preventing the conclusion of the Treaty, of an addition of at least
20,000,000 sterling per annum, to the value of our general exchanges with France.
No wise legislation could retain such a tax in the face of such consequences. There is
probably no other form of tax to which it could not have been preferable to resort,
rather than to maintain these obstacles to our trade with France.
But the consequences of the Treaty with France were not confined to that country and
to England. It was an act which, both by its moral effect and its direct and necessary
influence on the legislation of the other Continental countries, has set on foot a
movement which grows from year to year, and will not cease till all protective duties
have been erased from the commercial codes of Europe.
It was thus the rare privilege of the man who had been the foremost in giving the
death-blow to monopoly in England, to be also among the first to storm the citadel of
protection on the Continent, and to give to the work which he commenced at home, a
decisive international impulse, destined to afford new securities for the most sacred of
human rightsthe right of labour, and to add new realms to the empire of freedom.
Cobden had yet another success awaiting him, to our mind the most signal triumph of
his life. He lived to see the great moral and economic laws, which he had enforced
through years of opposition and obloquy, asserting their control over the forces of
reaction, and moulding our foreign policy.
It must have been with a superb and heartfelt satisfaction that Cobden watched the
conflict of public opinion at the time of the Danish War.
The diplomatic intervention of the Government had brought us to the verge of war,
and made it more than usually difficult to retreat.
The old instincts of the ruling classes of the nation were thoroughly aroused, and,
unless they had been neutralised and overpowered by stronger and deeper forces, we
should, under a fancied idea of chivalry and honour (if anything can deserve these
names which is opposed to reason and duty), have squandered once more the hard-
earned heritage of English labour, in a war of which the causes and the merits were
for the most part unknown among us, and could never have been made intelligible to
the nation, and in which our success, if possible, might have thrown back all liberal
progress for years, both in England and on the Continent.
But it soon became manifest that a nobler and larger morality had been gaining
ground in the heart of the nation, had at last found its expression in the Councils of the
State, and had enforced its control over those who still believed that the mission of
England is to hold by force the balance of power in Europe.
The memorable debate which decided the course of our policy in this critical moment
decided far greater issues; and the principle of non-intervention, as it has been
explained above, the only hope for the moral union of nations and the progress of
freedom, became the predominating rule of our foreign policy, and, with different
limitations and qualifications, a cardinal point in the Liberal creed.
We must here close a hasty and imperfect sketch of Cobden's political life and
principles, in the hope that the outline which we have traced may be filled up by other
hands. Our object will have been attained, if we have succeeded in leading some of
our readers to suspect the erroneous and superficial nature of the prevalent opinion of
Cobden, in the upper ranks of English society, and to believe that the verdict of
history will rather confirm the judgment of his humbler countrymen, with whom his
name has become a household word.
In reviewing the political programme given in the preceding pages, we shall see that
while much has been done, far more remains to do; and that, although there is great
cause for hope, there is also much ground for fear.
Of all the dreams in which easy-going and half-hearted politicians indulge, the idlest
appears to be that in which it is fondly imagined that the days of party strife are over,
and that no questions lie before us, on which the majority of moderate and honest men
are not agreed. It is useless to shut over eyes to the fact that, before the future
greatness and prosperity of our country can be assured, great issues must be raised,
and fierce political struggles traversed. We have a firm and confident belief that the
forces on the side of progress are sufficient to achieve what is required for this
consummation, by peaceful and constitutional reforms; but the cause will not be won
without stenuous efforts.
It will not be won without the aid of men who, in the measure of their gifts, will bring
to bear upon the task the qualities of which in Cobden's life we have such enduring
proofs: pure morality, keen intelligence, perfect disinterestedness, undaunted courage,
indomitable tenacity of purpose, high patriotism, and an immovable faith in the
predestined triumph of good over evil.
That the principles of public morality which Cobden devoted his life to enforce will
ultimately prevail in the government of the world, we think that no one who believes
in God or man can doubt. Whether it be in store for our country first to achieve by
their adoption the last triumphs of civilisation, and to hold her place in the van of
human progress, or whether to other races, and to other communities, will be confided
this great mission, it is not for us to determine.
But those who trust that this may yet be England's destiny, who, in spite of much
which they deplore, delight to look upon her past with pride, and her future with hope,
will ever revere the memory of Cobden, as of one whose lifelong aim it was to lay the
foundations of her empire in her moral greatness, in the supremacy of reason, and in
the majesty of lawand will feel with us that the international man was also, and
still more, an Englishman.
[NOTEThe late Sir Louis Mallet was Mr. Cobden's assistant in the negotiations of
the Treaty of Commerce with France in 1860, and was at the Board of Trade in
succeeding years, charged with the negotiations of similar treaties with other
European powers, which did so much for the extension of free trade ideas and
effected a general reduction of tariffs which has not even yet lost its effect.. He was
brought much into contact with Mr. Cobden in official and private life, and in later
years one of his friends wrote to him as follows: You are not only a Cobdenite pur
sang but unless I am much mistaken, you have realised more perfectly and completely
than Cobden did himself, the higher and more ideal side of the Cobdenic creed. Sir
Louis Mallet, in reply, denied that this was the case, saying that he had done little
more than put into a connected shape ideas which his friends had heard from him
again and again.
No apology is therefore needed for the reprinting of the essay which forms the
introduction to this volume, for until the publication of Cobden's Life by Mr. John
Morley, who had the advantage of Sir L. Mallet's assistance and advice, it was the
only authoritative comment upon the great free trade statesman's work.]
INTRODUCTION TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.
By William Cullen Bryant.
On the evening of the 18th of June, 1845, Covent Garden Theatre, in London, was
crowded with men and women assembled at the call of the Anti-Corn-Law League.
They had come together in order to hear addresses from some of the eminent leaders
of that association. I was present, and had never seen a large assembly more
respectable in appearance, or more attentive to every word that fell from the lips of
the speakersenthusiastic applause interrupting, from time to time, the profound
silence, and again quickly hushed into breathless attention. This vast audience was
addressed by John Bright, Richard Cobden, and W. J. Fox. Bright had then begun to
distinguish himself by that manly and massive eloquence which has since given him
his fame. The oratory of Fox, who spoke last, was of a more florid cast, and enlivened
with sallies of humour, by which the audience was greatly entertained. But most of all
was I impressed by the speech of Mr. Cobdenby his direct dealing with the subject
of discussion, the manifest sincerity of his convictions, his air of invincible
determination, the perspicuity of his statements, his skill in arranging and presenting
his topics, and the closeness of his logic. So persuasive was his address, that I saw at
once why so high a place had been assigned him in the agitation for the repeal of the
Corn Laws. Here was one who knew how to appeal to the general mind of his
countrymen, and having won their assent to the merits of a great public cause, was
able to infuse into them his own resolute spirit in carrying forward that cause to its
final triumph.
When I left the building I remember saying to a friend that I did not see how the Corn
Laws could survive the attacks to which they were exposed, and that I perceived, or
thought I perceived, in the meeting I had just attended, the proofs of a public opinion
too powerful for the landowners much longer to resist. The hour of triumph for the
League was, in fact, even nearer than I anticipated. In the next year's session of
Parliament, the British Ministry, with Sir Robert Peel at its head, came forward with a
Bill for removing the old restrictions on the trade in grain, and wresting from the
landed proprietors the monopoly on which they had relied as one of the main sources
of their prosperity. The Bill became a law; the long and vehement struggle was closed
by the defeat of the aristocracy; Peel, now the object of their displeasure, though
thanked by the nation, withdrew from the Ministry; but he, like Mr. Cobden, found his
reward in the appreciation of his countrymen.
More to be valued than mere success in procuring this change to be made by
Parliament was the triumph of the principles on which the change was founded. Mr.
Cobden and his associates in the agitation for free trade in corn had always insisted
that the agriculture of the country would suffer no prejudice from the repeal of the
Corn Laws, and the result showed the truth of this assertion. The people were sensibly
relieved, and the landowners suffered no loss; the manufacturing population had
cheap bread, and the agricultural population were not deprived of employment. The
cultivator found himself obliged to resort to more skilful methods of tillage, and was
rewarded with richer harvests. I believe I am not mistaken when I say that among the
landowners of Great Britain there is now no fear or jealousy of foreign rivalry.
This success of an association organised under popular leaders against a powerful
aristocracy has made Mr. Cobden's an historical name. In discussing the justice and
expediency of what were called the Corn Laws of England, he was led to investigate
the principles which all measures regulating the intercourse between one nation and
another should recognise. All his writings refer to these principles, and have a value
which lifts them out of the sphere of local and temporary interests, and which no lapse
of years can impair. They are practical illustrations of the philosophy of commercial
legislation: documents from which the history of the world's commerce is to be
written. At present, while the policy of most governments in regard to their
intercourse with each other is far from being fully and finally settled, they form a
storehouse of arguments and illustrations in the controversies continually arising.
There are two classes of politiciansstatesmen the world generally agrees in calling
them, though that title, in its proper and nobler sense, belongs to but one of them. One
class keeps studiously in sight the rules of justice and humanity, as the principles of
legislation and government upon which it conscientiously supposes the welfare of the
community to depend. The other class, which is found in all countries and in all
political parties, aims at securing and promoting certain minor interests upon one
specious pretext or another, which is taken up or laid aside as it may serve or fail to
serve the occasion. I need not say that Mr. Cobden belonged to the former of these
classes, and was a statesman in the highest sense of the term. In all the public
measures which he discussed, he regarded mainly their consequences to the people at
large, or, in other words, the good of the human race. In the most civilised part of the
globe, he saw how often the subjects of the different governments were slaughtered
and stripped of their substance to carry on wars in which they had no manner of
interest, and the sole motive of which was the aggrandisement or caprice of those who
ruled them. Moreover, to refer a dispute between nations to the arbitrament of war is
in no way to obtain a just decision, and Mr. Cobden saw no reason why, for this brutal
method, the custom of nations should not substitute that which, in every society, even
of the loosest organisation, determines controversies between individuals, namely, the
obvious expedient of referring them to third persons presumed to be impartial as
between the disputants. He wrote, therefore, in favour of referring to arbitrators all
differences between nations which could not be settled by negotiation. It is certain
that this method is coming more and more into favour, as the intercourse between
nations becomes more intimate, although various causes still prevent it from being
generally adopted. At some time, when mankind shall be more generally enlightened,
and those who administer the governments of the world shall be forced to pay more
regard to the interests of the people whose affairs they have in charge, the folly of
going to war may be deemed as great as that of settling a question of law by a boxing
match. The hope that the world may grow wiser, and therefore more peaceful, as it
grows older, is not so absurd that it has not been cherished by the friends of the
human race from an early period; and whether it be a philanthropic dream, or, as I
believe, the expectation of a wise foresight, it has in all ages inspired the prayers of
good men, who look for the time when the sword shall be beaten into the pruning
hook, and nations shall learn war no more.
Mr. Cobden never hesitated to raise his voice against any war undertaken by the
British Government, for causes which, in his view, did not justify a resort to arms. In
1857, he led the majority which, in the House of Commons, censured Lord
Palmerston for the war with China. It is most natural in a time of war for the large
majority of every nation to take part with its own government, and to maintain the
justice of its quarrel. It was a great triumph for the cause of impartial justice in Great
Britain, when the popular branch of its legislature was persuaded so far to forego this
natural prejudice as to declare that a war in which the British ministry had involved
the nation was neither just nor necessary.
There could scarcely be a higher testimony to the statesmanship of Mr. Cobden, the
justness and safety of his views of commercial questions, and his capacity for
fulfilling an important public trust, than was given by the British Government, when,
a few years since, on his suggestion that an opportunity had presented itself for
placing the trade between Great Britain and France on a better and more liberal
footing, it entrusted him with full powers for that purpose. The expected arrangements
were made through his agency; a treaty was negotiated, and the result was an
enormous increase in the trade of the two countries, and a corresponding development
of friendly intercourse between the one people and the other.
In the later years of his life, Mr. Cobden took a deep interest in the controversy which
the leading men of the Southern States of this Republic forced upon the people of the
North, when, renouncing their allegiance to the Federal Government, and breaking
away from the Union, they invited an appeal to the sword. He was convinced of the
absolute necessity of the effort we were making to preserve the Union unimpaired, as
indispensable to the future peace and prosperity of the country. He rejoiced with good
men all over the world when our government repealed the law of bondage in the
Rebel States. He was one of those enlightened Englishmen who zealously took our
part against the governing class of their own country, maintained the justice of the
cause, and predicted for it a certain and glorious triumph. He lived, if not to see his
prediction fulfilled, yet to behold the sure signs of its near accomplishment.
I now leave the American reader to the perusal of the writings included in this
collection. He will find in them the utterances of a true friend of the human race,
whose sole aim was so to modify existing institutions, by proper and equitable
methods, that all who live under the same government may be equal partakers in its
benefits, and to bring all the blessings of life within the reach of the largest number.
This great end he kept steadily in view, never intimidated from pursuing it by the
danger of unpopularity, nor seduced to abandon it by the love of distinction and the
praises of the great. His indignation at the oppression of the weak and helpless was
never disguised, and his whole political life was made up of manly labours in the
cause of justice. From the writings of this illustrious teacher the wisest statesman may
be instructed in the practical application of the maxims of a comprehensive, humane,
and generous political philosophy.
New York,
November, 1866.
? It has been thought that Mr. Bryant's Introduction would be as interesting to the
English as to the American reader, and it is therefore added to the present edition.
THE POLITICAL WRITINGS OF RICHARD COBDEN.
ENGLAND, IRELAND, AND AMERICA.
1835.
The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our
commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible.
Washington's farewell address to the American people.
NOTE TO ENGLAND, IRELAND, AND AMERICA.
As the first of Mr. Cobden's literary productionswritten and published in the spring
of 1835, when he was unknown to fame, and a simple Manchester
Manufacturerthe following pamphlet is invested with an interest peculiarly its
own. Like the succeeding work on Russia, it has for many years been out of print;
and although, during the intervening period, it has been constantly alluded to and
frequently criticised, probably few of those who wrote and still fewer of those who
read the strictures of the press upon it, had an opportunity of reading either of the
editions which were published thirty years ago. It may be interesting to state that both
pamphlets were in the first instance published by Mr. Ridgway, of Piccadilly, and
subsequently reproduced in a cheap form by the late Mr. William Tait, of Edinburgh,
in whose hands England, Ireland, and America passed through, at least, six editions.
It will be seen that at that early period Mr.Cobden foresaw the importance to Ireland
of Trans-Atlantic steam-packet stations at suitable points on her coast, as well as of
the more general cultivation of flax, the great staple of Irish manufactures, on soil
suitable for the purpose. He dealt with the questions of the national debt and of the
military and naval establishments of the United States as he then found them. No one
could at that time foresee that the institution of negro slavery would entail upon the
American nation so terrible a retribution as that with which they have since been
visited, although Mr. Cobden was careful to point out that the existence of this
indelible stain upon their religion and government would serve to teach mankind
that no deed of guilt or oppression can be perpetrated with impunity, even by the most
powerful. This pamphlet also contains Mr. Cobden's earliest published contribution
to the literature of free trade. It may further be remarked that almost immediately after
he had seen these pages through the press, he paid his first visit to the United States.
He landed in New York on Sunday, June 7th, 1835, andreckoning the sea
voyageswas absent exactly three months. The impressions which he had previously
formed of the illimitable resources of the great Republic, of the ingenious and
industrious character of the people, of the wide diffusion among them of the blessings
of education, and of the boundless spirit of enterprise by which they were animated,
were fully confirmed by what he saw with his own eyes: and on his return to England
he found nothing in his pamphlet that required to be omitted or modified in the
subsequent editions.
Part I.
England.
To maintain what is denominated the true balance of European power has been the
fruitful source of wars from the earliest time; and it would be instructive, if the
proposed limits of this work permitted it, to bring into review all the opposite
struggles into which England has plunged for the purpose of adjusting, from time to
time, according to the ever-varying theories of her rulers, this national equilibrium.
Let it suffice to say, that history exhibits us, at different periods, in the act of casting
our sword into the scale of every European State. In the meantime, events have
proclaimed, but in vain, how futile must be our attempts to usurp the scepter of the
Fates. Empires have arisen unbidden by us; others have departed, despite our utmost
efforts to preserve them. All have undergone a change so complete that, were the
writers who only a century ago lauded the then existing state of the balance of Europe
to reappear, they would be startled to find, in the present relations of the Continent, no
vestige of that perfect adjustment which had been purchased at the price of so much
blood. And yet we have able writers and statesmen of the present day, who would
advocate a war to prevent a derangement of what we now choose to pronounce the
just equipoise of the power of Europe.
For a period of six hundred years, the French and English people had never ceased to
regard each other as natural enemies. Scarcely a generation passed over its allotted
section of this vast interval of time without sacrificing its victims to the spirit of
national hate. It was reserved for our own day to witness the close of a feud, the
bloodiest, the longest, and yet, in its consequences, the most nugatory of any that is to
be found in the annals of the world. Scarcely has we time to indulge the first emotions
of pity and amazement at the folly of past ages, when, as if to justify to the letter the
sarcasm of Hume, when alluding to another subject,? we, the English people, are
preparing, through the vehicles of opinion, the public press, to enter upon a hostile
career with Russia.
Russia, and no longer France, is the chimera that now haunts us in our apprehension
for the safety of Europe: whilst Turkey, for the first time, appears to claim our
sympathy and protection against the encroachments of her neighbours; and, strange as
it may appear to the politicians of a future age, such is the prevailing sentiment of
hostility towards to Russian government at this time in the public mind, that, with but
few additional provocatives administered to it by a judicious minister through the
public prints, a conflict with that Christian power, in defence of a Mahomedan people,
more than a thousand miles distant from our shores, might be made palatable, nay,
popular, with the British nation. It would not be difficult to find a cause for this
antipathy: the impulse, as usual with large masses of human beings, is a generous one,
and arises, in great part, from emotions of pity for the gallant Polish people, and of
indignation at the conduct of their oppressorssentiments in which we cordially and
zealously concur: and if it were the province of Great Britain to administer justice to
all the people of the earthin other words, if God has given us, as a nation, the
authority and the power, together with the wisdom and the goodness, sufficient to
qualify us to deal forth His vengeancethen should we be called upon in this case to
rescue the weak from the hands of their spoilers. But do we possess these favoured
endowments? Are we armed with the powers of Omnipotence: or, on the contrary, can
we discover another people rising into strength with a rapidity that threatens
inevitably to overshadow us? Again, do we find ourselves to possess the virtue and
the wisdom essential to the possession of supreme power; or, on the other hand, have
we not at our side, in the wrongs of a portion of our own people, a proof that we can
justly lay claim to neither?
Ireland and the United States of America ought to be the subjects of our inquiry at this
period, when we are, apparently, preparing ourselves to engage as parties to question
involving countries with which we are but remotely, and in comparison, very little
interested. Before entering upon some reflections under each of these heads, we shall
call the consideration of our readers to the affairs of Russia and Turkey; and we shall
use as the text of our remarks a pamphlet that has recently made its appearance under
the title of England, France, Russia, and Turkey, to which our attention was first
attracted by the favourable comments bestowed upon it by the influential portion of
the daily press.
The writer? appears to be versed in the diplomatic mysteries of the courts of St.
Petersburg and Constantinople: indeed, he hints that he has been himself a party to the
negotiations carried on with the Sublime Porte. He says, p. 77The details into
which we have already entered may probably contain internal evidence of our opinion
not having been formed in a closet, remote from the subject we are treating. And the
concluding words of the pamphlet are calculated to lead to a similar infence; and they
are, moreover, curious, as illustrating the tone of feeling with which the author
regards the Russian government:Our words have been fewer than our thoughts;
and, while we have to regret abler hands have not wielded our arms, we owe it to our
subject to state, that others, unproduced, prudence forbade to draw until the hour of
retribution arrives.
After a preliminary appeal to the sympathies of his readers in favour of Poland, he
proceeds to ask, Is the substance of Turkey to be added to the growth of Russia? Is
the mammoth of the Sarmatian plains to become the leviathan of the Hesperian seas?
Is another victim to be sacrificed within so short a time on the same alter, and because
the same trifling succour is again withheld? Are the remains of Turkey to be laid upon
the tomb of Poland, to exclude every ray of hope, and render its doom irrevocable?
To what extent this trifling succour is meant to go will be explained in the writer's
own words by-and-by. But we propose, in this place, to inquire what are the motives
that England can have to desire to preserve the Ottoman Empire at the risk of a war,
however trifling? In entering on this question we shall, of course, premise, that no
government has the right to plunge its people into hostilities, except in defence of
their own national honour or interest. Unless this principle be made the rule of all,
there can be no guarantee for the peace of any one country, so long as there may be
found a people, whose grievances may attract the sympathy or invite the interference
of another State. How, then, do we find our honour or interests concerned in
defending the Turkish territory against the encroachments of its Christian neighbour?
It is not alleged that we have an alliance with the Ottoman Porte, which binds us to
preserve its empire intact; nor does there exist, with regard to this country, a treaty
between Russia and Great Britain (as was the case with respect to Poland) by which
we became jointly guarantees for its separate national existence. The writer we are
quoting puts the motive for our interference in a singular point of view; he says, This
obligation is imposed upon us as members of the European community by the
approaching annihilation of another of our compeers. It is imposed upon us by the
necessity of maintaining the consideration due to ourselvesthe first element of
political power and influence. From this it would appear to be the opinion of our
author, that our being one of the nations of Europe imposes on us, besides the defence
of our own territory, the task of upholding the rights and perpetuating the existence of
all the other powers of the Continent, a sentiment common, we fear, to a very large
portion of the English public. In truth, Great Britain has, in contempt of the dictates of
prudence and self-interest, an insatiable thirst to become the peace-maker abroad, or if
that benevolent task fail her, to assume the office of gensdarme, and keep in order,
gratuitously, all the refractory nations of Europe. Hence does it arise, that, with an
invulnerable island for our territory, more secure against foreign molestation than is
any part of the coast of North America, we magnanimously disdain to avail ourselves
of the privileges which nature offers to us, but cross the ocean, in quest of
quadripartite treaties or quintuple alliances, and, probably, to leave our own good
name in pledge for the debts of the poorer members of such confederacies. To the
same spirit of overweening national importance may in great part be traced the
ruinous was, and yet more ruinous subsidies, of our past history. Who does not now
see that, to have shut ourselves in our own ocean fastness, and to have guarded its
shores and its commerce by our fleets, was the line of policy we ought never to have
departed fromand who is there that is not now feeling, in the burthen of our
taxation, the dismal errors of our departure from this rule during the last war? How
little wisdom we have gathered along with these bitter fruits of experience, let the
subject of our present inquiry determine!
Judging from another passage in this pamphlet, it would appear that England and
France are now to be the sole dictators of the international relations of all Europe. The
following passage is dictated by the pure spirit of English vanity whish has already
proved so expensive an appendage to our character; and which, unless allayed by
increased knowledge among the people, or fairly crushed out of us by our financial
burthens, will, we fear, carry us still deeper into the vortex of debt:The squadrons
of England and France anchored in the Bosphorus, they dictate their own terms to
Turkey; to Russia they proclaim, that from that day they intend to arbitrate supremely
between the nations of the earth.
We know of but one way in which the honour of this country may be involved in the
defence and preservation of the Turkish empire; and that is, through the indiscreet
meddling in the intrigues of the seraglio, on the part of our diplomatists. After a few
flourishes of the pen, in the style and spirit of the above quotations, shall have passed
between the gentlemen of the rival embassies of St. James's and St. Petersburg, who
knows but the English nation may, some day, be surprised by the discovery that it is
compromised in a quarrel from which there is no honourable escape but by the
disastrous course of a long and ruinous war.
If our honour be not committed in this case, still less shall we find, by examining a
little more at length, that our interests are involved in the preservation of Turkey. To
quote again from the pamphlet before us:Suffice it to say, that the countries
consuming to the yearly value of thirty millions? of our exports, would be placed
under the immediate control of the coalition (Russia, Prussia, and Austria), and, of
course, under the regulations of the Russian tariff, not as it is to-day, but such as it
would be when the mask is wholly dropped. What would be the effect on the internal
state of England, if a considerable diminution of exportation occurred? But it is not
only the direct effects of the tariffs of the coalition that are to be apprehended: would
it not command the tariffs of Northern and Southern America? Passing over, as too
chimerical for comment, the allusion to the New World, we here have the argument
which has, immediately or remotely, decided us to undertake almost every war in
which Great Britain has been involvedviz., the defence of our commerce. And yet it
has, over and over again, been proved to the world, that violence and force can never
prevail against the natural wants and wishes of mankind: in other words, that despotic
laws against freedom of trade never can be executed. Trade cannot, will not, be
forced; let other nations prohibit by what severity they please, interest will prevail:
they may embarrass their own trade, but cannot hurt a nation whose trade is free, so
much as themselves. So said a writer? a century ago, whilst experience down to our
day has done nothing but confirm the truth of his maxims; and yet people would
frighten us into war, to prevent the forcible annihilation of our trade! Can any proofs
be offered how visionary are such fears, more conclusive than are to be found in the
history of Napoleon's celebrated war against English commerce? Let us briefly stare a
few particulars of this famous struggle. The subject, though familiar to everybody, is
one the moral of which cannot be too frequently enforced.
The British Islands were, in 1807, declared by Bonaparte in a state of blockade, by
those decrees which aimed at the total destruction of the trade of Great Britain. The
Berlin and Milan edicts declared
1. The British Isles were in a state of blockade. 2. All commerce and correspondence
were forbidden. All English letters were to be seized in the post-houses. 3. Every
Englishman, of whatever rank of Quality, found in France, or the countries allied with
her, was declared a prisoner of war. 4. All merchandise or property, of whatever kind,
belonging to English subjects, was declared lawful prize. 5. All articles of English
manufacture, and articles produced in her colonies, were, in like manner, declared
contraband, and lawful prize.
France, Russia, Austria, Prussia, Holland, Italy, and the States of Germany, joined in
this conspiracy against the commerce of England. To enforce more effectually these
prohibitions, commissioners of rank were appointed to each of the principal seaports
of the Continent. Now, let us mark well the result of this great confederation, which
was formed for the avowed purpose of annihilating us as a trading people. The
following is an account of the declared value of our exports of British products for
each of the years mentioned, ending 5th of January:
1804 . . . . . . 36,100,000
1805 . . . . . . 37,100,000
1806 . . . . . . 37,200,000
1807 . . . . . . 39,700,000
1808 . . . . . . 36,400,000
1809 . . . . . . 36,300,000
It must be borne in mind that the proclamation of war against our trade, above-
mentioned, was dated in 1807. It appears, then, by the preceding tabular view, that our
commerce sustained a loss to the extent of about 7 per cent. in 1808 and 1809, as
compared with 1806 and 1807; whilst the amount of exports in the year 1808, or
1809, if compared with the mean or average amount of the above six years, shows a
diminution only of about two per cent. And all this took place, be it remembered,
when two-thirds of our foreign trade was confined to Europe.?
It is singular to observe that, by the following table, the declared value of our exports,
during the last six years, has remained nearly stationary, at a point varying from the
average of the former series of year only by a fraction.
Below is a table of the exports of the products of British industry for six years, ending
1833:
1828 . . . . . . 36,400,000
1829 . . . . . . 36,200,000
1830 . . . . . . 35,200,000
1831 . . . . . . 37,700,000
1832 . . . . . . 36,600,000
1833 . . . . . . 36,000,000
But it must be borne in view, that, as the price of the raw materials of manufactures,
such as wool, cotton, silk, iron, &c., together with the price of grain, has undergone a
vast depreciation since the former periods, of course the actual exchangeable value of
the money amounts in the second table is very much greater than in the first.
In fact, the official value of our exports appears to have doubled, whilst the real or
declared value has remained stationary. Bearing all this in mind, still, if we take into
consideration the great increase of our exports, since 1809, to the Americas, and to
Asiathe quarters where our commerce has been principally increasingand if we
also recollect the higher rate of profits at the earlier periods, it becomes a question if
our trade with Europe, notwithstanding its rapid increase in population and wealth,
has been benefited by the peace. It is exceedingly doubtful whether, whilst we were
engaged in a war for the avowed emancipation of our commence, our merchants were
not, all the while, carrying on a more gainful traffic with the Continent than they now
do, when its people have become our bloodless rivals at the loom and the spinning
frame.
Where, then, is the wisdom of our fighting European battles in defence of a commerce
which knows so well of itself how to elude all its assailants? And what have we to
show as a per-contra for the four hundred millions of debt incurred in our last
continental wars?
We have dwelt at greater length upon this point, because the advocates of an
intermeddling policy always hold up the alluring prospect of benefiting commerce;
and we think we have said enough to prove that Russian violence cannot destroy, or
even sensibly injure, our trade.
But it here becomes proper to ask, Are we warranted in the presumption that Russia is
less inclined than other nations for trading with us? Our author, indeed, says, p. 90,
Is it for England to allow an empire, a principle of whose existence is freedom of
commerce, to be swallowed up by the most restrictive power on the face of the earth?
Is it for England to allow the first commercial position in the world to be occupied by
such a power? Is it for England to allow freedom of commerce to be extinguished in
the only portion of Europe where it exists?
We are at a loss to account for the ignorance that exists with reference to the
comparative importance of out trade with Russia and with Turkey. The following
tables exhibit the amounts of our exports to each of the two countries, at the dates
mentioned:
EXPORTS TO RUSSIA. EXPORTS TO TURKEY.
A.D. A.D
1700 . 60,000 1700 . 220,000
1750 . 100,000 1750 . 135,000
1790 . 400,000 1790. 120,000
1800 . 1,300,000 1800 . 165,000
1820 . 2,300,000 1820 . 800,000
?
?
M'Culloch's Dict., 2nd Edit., p. 671.
By which it will be seen that, whilst Turkey has, in more than a century, quadrupled
the amount of her purchases, Russia has, in the same interval of time, increased her
consumption of our goods nearly forty-fold. Our exports since the year 1700 have
increased in a more rapid ratio to Russia than to any other country in Europe.
The rise of the commerce of St. Petersburg is unparalleled by anything we meet with
in Europe, out of England. This city founded in 1703; in 1714 only sixteen ships
entered the port, whilst in 1833 twelve hundred and thirty-eight vessels arrived, and of
which no less a proportion than six hundred and ninety-four were British.
Nor must it be forgotten, in drawing a comparison between the value of our trade with
Russia and that with Turkey, that, whilst the former has, until very recently, possessed
but little sea-coast, with but one good port, and that closed by ice one half of the year,
the latter had, down to the date at which we have purposely brought the comparison
(when the Greek Islands still formed a portion of the Turkish empire), more than
double the extent of maritime territory of any power in Europe, situated in latitudes,
too, the most favourable for commerce, including not only the best harbours in the
world, but the largest river in Europe.
Neither must it be forgotten that the natural products of the Russian empire are
restricted to corn, hemp, tallow, timber, and hides, with a few minor commodities;
and that of these, the two important articles of corn and timber are subjected to
restrictive, or we might almost say, prohibitive, duties at our hands; whilst Turkey
contains the soil and climate adapted for producing almost every article of commerce,
with the exception probably only of sugar and tea. We need only mention corn,
timber, cotton-wool, sheep's-wool, wood and drugs for dyeing, wine and spirits,
tobacco, silk, tallow, hides and skins, coffee, spices, and bullionto exhibit the
natural fertility of a country which is now rendered sterile by the brutalising rule of
Mahomedanism. Nor can it be said that commerce is wholly free in Turkey, since the
exportation of silk is burthened with a duty, and it is prohibited to export grain,? or
any other article of necessity, including the product of the mines.
It is true that this otherwise barbarous government has set an example to more
civilised countries, by its moderate import duties on foreign productions; and this, we
suspect, is the secret of that surprising tenacity of life which exists in the Ottoman
empire, notwithstanding the thousand organic diseases that are consuming its body
politic. But what avails to throw open the ports of a country to our ships, if the
population will not labour to obtain the produce wherewith to purchase our
commodities?
Plains, which Dr. Clarke compares to the fairest portions of Kent, capable of yielding
the best silk and cotton, abound in Syria; but despotic violence has triumphed even
over nature; and this province, which once boasted of Damascus and Antioch, of
Tyre, Sidon, and Aleppo, has, by the oppressive exactions of successive pachas,
become little better than a deserted waste.
Everywhere, says Volney, speaking of Asiatic Turkey, everywhere I saw only
tyranny and misery, robbery and devastation. I found daily on my route abandoned
fields, deserted villages, cities in ruins. Frequently I discovered antique monuments,
remains of temples, of palaces, and of fortresses; pillars, aqueducts, and tombs. This
spectacle led my mind to meditate on past item, and excited in my heart profound and
serious thought. I recalled those ancient ages when twenty famous nations existed in
these countries; I painted to myself the Assyrian on the banks of the Tigris, the
Chaldean of those of the Euphrates, the Persian reigning from the Indus to the
Mediterranean. I numbered the kingdoms of Damascus and Indumea, of Jerusalem
and Samaria, the warlike States of the Philistines, and the commercial republics of
Phnicia. This Syria, said I, now almost unpeopled, could then count a hundred
powerful cities; its fields were covered with towns, villages, and hamlets. Everywhere
appeared cultivated fields, frequented roads, crowded habitations. What, alas! has
become of those ages of abundance and of life? What of so many brilliant creations of
the hand of man? Where are the ramparts of Nineveh, he walls of Babylon, the
palaces of Persepolis, the temples of Baalbec and Jerusalem? Where are the fleets of
Tyre, the docks of Arad, the looms of Sidon, and that multitude of sailors, of pilots, of
merchants, of soldiers? Where are those labourers, those harvests, those flocks, and
that crowd of living beings that then covered the face of the earth? Alas! I have
surveyed this ravaged landI have visited the places which were the theatre of so
much splendourand have seen only solitude and desertion. The temples are
crumbled down; the palaces are overthrown; the ports are filled up; the cities are
destroyed; the earth, stripped of its inhabitants, is only a desolate place of tombs.
No less hideous is the picture gives to us by another eloquent eye-witness of the
desolation of this once flourishing region.
A few paltry shops expose nothing but wretchedness to view, and even these are
frequently shut, from apprehension of the passage of a Cadi.
Not a creature is to be seen in the streets, not a creature at the gates, except now and
then a peasant gliding through the gloom, concealing under his garments the fruits of
his labour, lest he should be robbed of his hard earnings by the rapacious soldier. The
only noise heard from time to time is the galloping of the steed of the desert; it is the
janissary, who brings the head of the Bedouin, or returns from plundering the
unhappy fellah.?
A still more recent traveller, and one of our own countrymen, has these emphatic
words, when speaking of the Turkish territory: Wherever the Osmanli has trod
devastation and ruin mark his steps, civilisation and the arts have fled, and made room
for barbarism and the silence of the desert and the tomb.
But why need we seek for foreign testimony of the withering and destroying
influences of Mahomedanism? The turks themselves have a proverb, which says,
Where the sultan's hourse has trod, there no grass grows.
And where the Spahi's hoof hath trod,
The verdure flies the bloody sod,
Byron.
Our limits do not allow us to dwell on this portion of our task; suffice it to say, that,
beneath the sway of Ottoman violence, the pursuits of agriculture and commerce are
equally neglected, in regions that once comprised the mart and granary of the world.
No ship was ever seen to leave a Turkish port, manned with Turkish sailors, upon the
peaceful errand of foreign mercantile traffic. On the ocean, as upon land, this fierce
people have always been the scourge of humanity, and a barrier to the progress of
commerce and civilisation. In their hands, Smyrna, which was termed by the ancients
the ornament of Asia, and Constantinople, chosen for the unrivalled seat of empire by
one who possessed the sovereignty of the worldthese two cities, adapted by nature
to become the centres of a vast trade, are now, through the barbarism and indolence of
their rulers, little better than nurseries of the plague!
What shall we say more to prove that England can have no interest in perpetuating the
commercial bondage of such a land as we have been describing?
Before quitting the consideration of this part of our subject, we will, for a moment,
give way to our imagination, and picture the results that would follow, supposing that
the population of the United States of America could be moved from their present
position on the earth's surface, and in a moment be substituted in the place of the
inhabitants of Turkey. Very little difference of latitude opposes itself to the further
supposition that the several pachalics, being transformed into free states, should be
populated by the natives of such districts of the New World as gave the fittest
adaptation to their previous habits of labour. Now, let us picture this empire, after it
had been for fifty years only subject to the laws, the religion, and the industry of such
a people.
Constantinople, outrivalling New York, may be painted, with a million of free
citizens, as the focus of all the trade of eastern Europe. Let us conjure up the
thousands of miles of railroads, carrying to the very extremities of this empirenot
the sanguinary satrap, butthe merchandise and the busy traders of a free state;
conveyingnot the firman of a ferocious sultan, armed with death to the trembling
slave, butthe millions of newspapers and letter, which stimulate the enterprice and
excite the patriotism of an enlightened people. Let us imagine the Bosphorus and the
Sea of Marmora swarming with steamboats, connecting the Europeans the Asiatic
continents by hourly departures and arrivals; or issuing from the Dardanelles, to
reanimate once more with life and fertility the hundred islands of the Archipelago; or,
conceive the rich shores of the Black Sea in the power of the New Englander, and the
Danube pouring down its produce from the plains of Moldavia and Wallachia, now
subject to the plough of the hardy Kentuckian. Let us picture the Carolinians, the
Virginians, and the Georgians, transplanted to the coasts of Asia Minor, and behold its
hundreds of cities again bursting from the tomb of ages, to recall religion and
civilisation to the spot from whence they first issued forth upon the world. Alas! that
this should be only an illusion of the fancy!
There remains another argument in favour of an interposition on our part in defence of
Turkey for us to notice; and it points to the danger our colonies might be in, from any
movements which Russia should make eastward. Our Indian possessions, says the
pamphlet before quoted: shall we fight for them on the Dnieper, as directing the
whole Mussulman nation, or shall we fight for them on the Indus, at Bagdad, or in
Persia, single-handed; close to the insurrection she will raise in her rear, and when she
is in possession of Turkey?
We might have passed over this point as too chimerical for comment, were it not that
it involves a question upon which, we believe, there is greater misapprehension than
upon any other subject that engages the attention of our countrymen. Supposing
Russia or Austria to be in possession of the Turkish dominions, would she not find
her attention and resources far too abundantly occupied in retaining the sovereignty
over fifteen millions of fierce and turbulent subjects, animated with warlike hatred to
their conquerors, and goaded into rebellion by the all-powerful impulse of a haughty
and intolerant religion, to contemplate adding still further to her embarrassments by
declaring war with England, and giving the word of march to Hindostan? Who does
not perceive that it could not, for ages at least, add to the external power of either of
these states, if she were to get possession of Turkey be force of arms? Is Russia
stronger abroad by her recent perfidious incorporation of Polish territory? Would
Holland increase her power if she were to reconquer her Belgic provinces to-morrow?
Or, to come to our own doors, for example, was Great Britain more powerful whilst,
for centuries, she held Ireland in disaffected subjection to her rule; or was she not
rather weakened, by offering, in the sister island, a vulnerable point of attack to her
continental enemies?
But supposing merely be way of argument, the Russia, meditated hostile views
towards our eastern colonies.
Constantinople is about three thousand miles distant from Calcutta: are our Indian
possessions of such value to he British people that we must guard them with
operations is extended and so costly as would be necessary if the shores of the
Bosphorus are to be made the outpost for our armies of the Ganges? Surely it
becomes a momentous question, to the already over-burdened people of England, to
ascertain what advantages are to be reaped from enterprises like this, which, whatever
other results they may chance to involve, are certain to entail increased taxation on
themselves.
Nothing, we believe, presents so fair a field for economical analysis, even in this age
of new lights, as the subject of colonisation. We can, of course, only briefly allude to
the question; but, in doing so, we suggest it as one that claims the investigation of
independent public writers, and of all those members of the legislature who are of and
for the people, distinct from selfish views or aristocratic tendencies.
Spain lies, at this moment, a miserable spectacle of a nation whose own natural
greatness has been immolated on the shrine of Trans-Atlantic ambition. May not some
future historian possibly be found recording a similar epitaph on the tomb of Britain?
In truth, we have been planting, and supporting, and governing countries upon all
degrees of habitable, and some that are not habitable, latitudes of the earth's surface;
and so grateful to our national pride has been the spectacle, that we have never, for
once, paused to inquire if our interests were advanced by so much nominal greatness.
Three hundred millions of permanent debt have been accumulatedmillions of direct
taxation are annually leviedrestrictions and prohibitions are imposed upon our trade
in all quarters of the world, for the acquisition or maintenance of colonial possessions;
and all for what? That we may repeat the fatal Spanish proverb The sun never sets
on the King of England's dominions. For we believe that no candid investigator of
our colonial policy will draw the conclusion that we have derived, or shall derive,
from it advantages that can compensate for these formidable sacrifices.
But we are upon he verge of a novel combination of commercial necessities that will
altogether change the relations in which we have hitherto stood with our colonies. We
call them necessities, because they will be forced upon us, not from conviction of the
wisdom of such changes, but by the irresistible march of events. The New World is
destined to become the arbiter of the commercial policy of the Old. We will see in
what manner this is in operation.
At the passing of the Negro Emancipation Act, an effort was made by the merchants
of Liverpool, trading to South America, to prevail on the Legislature to abolish the
discriminating duties on West India sugar, which operated so severely on the trade
with the Brazils. It was finally decided that the bounty in favour of the importation of
our colonial productions should be continued for ten years. At the end of this period,
if not long before, therefore, the monstrous impolicy of sacrificing our trade with a
new continent, of almost boundless extent of rich territory, in favour of a few small
islands, with comparatively exhausted soils, will cease to be sanctioned by the law.
What will then follow? If we no longer offer the exclusive privileges of our market to
the West Indians, we shall cease, as a matter of justice and necessity, to compel them
to purchase exclusively from us. They will be at liberty, in short, to buy wherever they
can buy goods cheapest, and to sell in the dearest market. They must be placed in the
very same predicament as if they were not a part of his Majesty's dominons. Where,
then, will be the semblance of a plea for putting ourselves to the expense of governing
and defending such countries? Let us apply the same test to our other colonies.
It is no longer a debateable question, amongst enlightened and disinterested minds,
that the privileges which we give to the Canadian exporters of timber to Britain, and
by which alone we command a monopoly of that market for our manufactures, are
founded on gross injustice to the people of this country, and are calculated to give a
forced misdirection, as all such bounties are, to the natural industry of these colonies,
by causing the investment of capital in the preparing and shipping of inferior timber,
which would otherwise seek its legitimate employment in the pursuit of agriculture.
This monopoly must yield to the claims of the United States and Baltic trades. Nor
have we been contented with sacrificing our own interests to the promotion of a
fictitious prosperity in our colonies, but we destroy the interests of one of these, in he
vain hope of benefiting another. Thus, in the same spirit of withering protection, we
have awarded to the West Indies a monopoly of the trade to Canada, whilst, to the
latter, we give the privilege of exclusively supplying the former with corn and
timber:? and all this whilst, at the same time, these islands lie within half the distance
of the shores of the United States, whose maritime districts possess all the identical
exchangeable products with Canada, and teem with a population of industrious and
enterprising people, eager for a commerce with these prohibited people.
True, the Government of the United States has lately compelled us, in self-defence, to
relax from this system; and every one now sees that the same motive prescribes that
the commerce of the West Indies be wholly, and without restriction, thrown open to
the people of the neighbouring continent, from which it has hitherto been shut out
only by means of unnatural prohibitions.
We have said that the new World is the arbiter of the commercial policy of the Old;
and we will now see in what way this is the fact in the case of our East Indian trade.
Hitherto it has been the custom to impose discriminating duties in favour of the
products of these colonies; and this, and this only, has given us the right to compel
these dependencies, in return, to restrict themselves to the purchase of our
manufactures. We have seen that this restrictive policy must be abandoned in the case
of the West Indies and Canada, and still less shall we find it practicable to uphold it in
the East, our leading imports from this quarter must be cotton-wool, silk, indigo, and
sugar. The last of these articles, as we have already shown in speaking of the West
Indies, the Brazils have, by its successful culture, forced us to remove from the list of
protected commodities; whilst the three first, being raw products, in the supply and
manufacture of which we are so closely checkmated by the competition of the United
States or of European countries, it would be madness to think of subjecting the
fabrication of them to restrictive duties, however trifling.
We shall then be under the necessity of levying the same duties on the cotton, sugar,
&c., imported from the East Indies, as on similar products coming from North or
South America; and it will follow, of course, that, as we offer no privileges in our
markets to the planters of Hindostan, we can claim none for our manufacturers in
theirs. In other words, they must be left at liberty to buy wherever they can purchase
cheapest, and to sell where they can do so at the dearest rate; they will, in all respects,
be, commercially and fiscally speaking, the same to us as though they did not form a
part of his Majesty's dominions. Where then will be the plea for subjecting ourselves
to the heavy taxation required to maintain armies and navies for the defence of these
colonies?
Provided our manufactures be cheaper than those of our rivals, we shall command the
custom of these colonies by the same motives of self-interest which being the
Peruvians, the Brazilians, or the natives of North America, to clothe themselves with
the products of our industry; and, on the other hand, they will gladly sell to us their
commodities through the same all-powerful impulse, provided we offer for them a
more tempting price than they will command in other markets.
We have thus hastily and incidentally glanced at a subject which we predict will
speedily force itself upon the attention of our politicians; and we know of nothing that
would be so likely to conduce to a diminution of our burdens, by reducing the charges
of the army, navy, and ordnance (amounting to fourteen millions annually), as a
proper understanding of our relative position with respect to our colonial
possessions.? We are aware that no power was ever yet known, voluntarily, to give up
the dominion over a part of its territory. But if it could be made manifest to the trading
and industrious portions of this nation, who have no honours or interested ambition of
any kind at stake in the matter, that whilst our dependencies are supported at an
expense to them, in direct taxation, of more than five millions annually, they serve but
as gorgeous and ponderous appendages to swell our ostensible grandeur, but in reality
to complicate and magnify our government expenditure, without improving our
balance of tradesurely under such circumstances, it would become at least a
question for anxious inquiry with a people so overwhelmed with debt, whether those
colonies should not be suffered to support and defend themselves as separate and
independent existences.
Adam Smith, more than sixty years ago, promulgated his doubts of the wisdom and
profitableness of our colonial policyat a time, be it remembered, when we were
excluded, by the mother countries, from the South American markets, and when our
West Indian possessions appeared to superficial minds an indispensable source of vast
wealth to the British empire. Had he lived to our day, to behold the United States of
America, after freeing themselves from the dominion of the mother country, become
our largest and most friendly commercial connectionhad he live also to behold the
free states of South America only prevented from outstripping in magnitude all our
other customers by the fetters which an absurd law of exclusive dealing with those
very West Indian Colonies has imposed on our commercehow fully must his
opinions have coincided with all that we have urged on this subject!
Here, let us observe, that it is worthy of surprise how little progress has been made in
the study of that science of which Adam Smith was, more than half a century ago, the
great luminary. We regret that no society has been formed for the purpose of
disseminating a knowledge of the just principles of trade. Whilst agriculture can boast
almost as many associations as there are British counties; whilst every city in the
kingdom contains its botanical, phrenological, or mechanical institutions, and these
again possess their periodical journals (and not merely these, for even war sends forth
its United Service Magazine), we possess no association of traders, united together for
the common object of enlightening the world upon a question so little understood, and
so loaded with obloquy, as free trade.
We have our Banksian, our Linnan, our Hunterian Societies; and why should not at
least our greatest commercial and manufacturing towns posses their Smithian
Societies, devoted to the purpose of promulgating the beneficent truths of the Wealth
of Nations? Such institutions, by promoting a correspondence with similar societies
that would probably be organised abroad (for it is our example, in questions affecting
commerce, that strangers follow), might contribute to the spread of liberal and just
views of political science, and thus tend to ameliorate the restrictive policy of foreign
governments, through the legitimate influence of the opinions of their people.
Nor would such societies be fruitless at home. Prizes might be offered for the best
essays on the corn question; or lecturers might be sent to enlighten the agriculturists,
and to invite discussion upon a subject so difficult and of such paramount interest to
all.
The question of the policy or justice of prohibiting the export of machinery might be
brought to the test of public discussion; these, and a thousand other question might,
with usefulness, engage the attention of such associations.
But to return to the consideration of the subject more immediately before us.
It will be seen from the arguments and facts we have urged, and are about to lay
before our readers, that we entertain no fears that our interests would be likely to
suffer from the aggrandisement of a Christian power at the expense of Turkey, even
should that power be Russia. On the contrary, we have no hesitation in avowing it as
our deliberate conviction, that not merely great Britain, but the entire civilised world,
will have reason to congratulate itself, the moment when that territory again falls
beneath the sceptre of any other European power whatever. Ages must elapse before
its favoured region will become, as it is by nature destined to become, the seat and
centre of commerce, civilisation and true religion; but the first step towards this
consummation must be to convert Constantinople again into that which every lover of
humanity and peace longs to behold itthe capital of a Christian people. Nor let it be
objected by more enlightened believers, that the Russians would plant that corrupted
branch of our religion, the Greek Church, on the spot where the first Christian
monarch erected a temple to the true faith of the Apostles. We are no advocates of
that Church, with its idolatrous worship and pantomimic ceremonials, fit only to
delude the most degraded and ignorant minds; but we answerput into a people's
hands the Bible in lieu of the Koranlet the religion of Mahoment give place to that
of Jesus Christ; and human reason, aided by the printing press and the commerce of
the world, will not fail to erase the errors which time, barbarism, or the cunning of its
priesthood, may have engrafted upon it.
But to descent from these higher motives to the question of our own interests, to
which, probably, as politicians, we ought to confine our consideration.
Nothing, we confess, appears so opposed to the facts of experience, as the belief
which has been so industriously propagated in this country, that Russia, if she held the
keys of the Dardanelles, would exclude all trade from the Black Sea and the Sea of
Marmora. The writer so often quoted, says On the occupation of the Dardanelles
disappears the importance of our possessions in the Levant. They were only valuable
because the Turks held these Straits. When Russia is there, they are valueless, and
will soon be untenable. It might be a sufficient reply to these assertions, unsupported
by facts or reasoning, to demand of what use will these maritime possessions be to
Russia, or any other power, unless for the purposes of trade? Why did the government
of St. Petersburg, for nearly a century, bend a steady and longing eye on the ports of
the Euxine, but for the facilities which the possession of one of them would give to
the traffic between the interior provinces of Russia and the Mediterranean?
We write, however, with no motive but to disabuse the public mind on an important
question; and as we prefer in all cases to appeal to facts, we shall here give a few
particulars of the rise and progress of the only commercial port of consequence as yet
established in the Black Sea.
The first stone of the town of Odessa was laid, by order of Catherine, in 1792.
Previously to this, the Euxine was so little visited by our mariners, that every kind of
absurd story was advanced and credited respecting the danger of its navigation: the
very name was held to be only synonymous with the black and dismal character of its
storms, or the perilous mists that it was imagined constantly shrouded its surface. The
Danube was, in a like spirit of credulity, suspected to pour from its channel so vast a
deposit of mud as to fill the Black Sea with shoals, that threatened, in the course of a
few ages, to convert its waters into dry land; whilst this river, the nobles in Europe,
sealed by Turkish jealousy, thus blotting our, as it were, from commercial existence,
that vast pastoral district through which it flowedthis stream, whose course lay
almost in the centre of Christendom, was as little knows as the great yellow river of
China.
Odessa has fully equalled the rapid commercial rise of St. Petersburg, to which only
in importance it is now the second in the Russian empire. These two ports, which we
are taught to believe belong to the most anti-commercial people, present, singularly
enough, the two most astonishing instances in Europe of quick advances in wealth,
trade, and population.
This town has latterly been declared a free port, with exemptions from taxes; and,
therefore, we cannot but anticipate for it a much more rapid career in the time to
come.
The population of Odessa is estimated at 40,000 souls. The exportation of tallow has
increased in two years twenty-fold, thus civilising and enriching extensive districts
which must have remained in comparative barbarism, had not this outlet been found
for their product. During the same time the breed of sheep has been much improved in
these vast southern regions of the Russian territory by the introduction of the
merinoes, and the consequent increase of the export of wool has been very
considerable.
The amount of imports is stated at 30,000,000 roubles.
We subjoin a statement of the movement or Russian and British shipping at this port,
to show that here, as at St. Petersburg and elsewhere, the commerce of England finds
a proportionate extension with the trade of other countries.
?
Already have its merchants appeared as our customers on the Exchange of
Manchester; and it only requires that we remove our suicidal restrictions on the
import of corn, to render Odessa ultimately one of the chief contributors to the trade
of Liverpool.
The influence of Russia, since she has gained a settlement on the shores of the
Euxine, has been successfully exercised in throwing open the navigation of its waters,
with those of the Danube, to the world, and this noble river has at length been
subjected to the dominion of steam, which will, beyond all other agents, tend most
rapidly to bring the population of its banks within the pale of civilisation. A Danube
Steam Navigation Joint Stock Company has been projected, and will, in all
probability, be in operation next summer; and, as this will give the route from the
west of Europe to Turkey, by the way of Vienna, the preference, there is no reason to
doubt that eventually this river will enjoy a considerable traffic both of passengers
and merchandise.
We have probably said sufficient to prove, from facts, that Russia is not an anti-
commercial nation.
We have endeavoured likewise to show that alarms for the safety of our eastern
possessions ought not to induce us to go to war to check a movement three thousand
miles removed from their capital; and to those who are inspired with fear for our
European commerce, from the aggrandisement of Russia, we have answered by
showing that Napoleon, when he had all Europe at his feet, could not diminish our
trade eight per cent.
What then remains to be urged in favour of the policy of this Government putting its
over-taxed people to the cost of making warlike demonstrations in favour of Turkey?
At the moment when we write a British fleet is wintering in the Gulf of Vourla, the
cost of which, at a low estimate, probably exceeds two millions, to say nothing of
living materiel; and this is put in requisition in behalf of a country with which we
carry on a commerce less in annual amount than is turned over by either of two
trading concerns that we could name in the city of London!
But we are to await a regeneration of this Mahometan empire. Our arms, we are told,
are not only to defend its territory, but to reorganize or reconstruct the whole Turkish
government, and to bestow upon its subjects improved political institutions. Let us
note what the pamphlet before us says upon this subject, and let it be borne in mind
that the writer's sentiments have been applauded by some of our influential journals
It is the policy of England which alone can save her: it is therefore no trivial or idle
investigation which we have undertaken, since it is her political elements that we have
to embody into a new political instrument. P. 54. Again In the capital, in the
meanest villages, in the centre of communications, on the furthest frontiers, a feeling
of vague but intense expectation is spread, which will not be satisfied with less at our
hands than internal reorganisation and external independence. P. 62. Again
Unless anticipated by visible intervention on the part of England, which will relieve
them from the permanent menace of the occupation of the capital, and which will
impose on the Government(!) the necessity of a change of measures, a catastrophe is
inevitable, P. 63. And again An empire which in extent, in resources, in
population, in position, and in individual qualities and courage in all, in fact, save
instruction is one of the greatest on the face of the earth, is brought to look with
ardent expectation for the arrival of a foreign squadron, and a body of auxiliaries in its
capital, and to expect from their presence the reformation of internal abuses (!) and
the restoration of its political independence. P. 73.
To protect Turkey against her neighbour, Russia to defend the Turks against their
own government to force on the latter a constitution, we suppose to redress all
internal grievances in a state where there is no law but despotism ! Here, then, in a
word, is the trifling succour (p. 2) which we are called on to render our ancient
ally; and if the people of Great Britain desired to add another couple of hundreds of
millions to their debt, we think a scheme is discovered by which they may be
gratified, without seeking for quarrels in any other quarter.
If such propositions as these are, however, to be received gravely it might be
suggested to inquire, would Russia, would Austria, remain passive, whilst another
power sent her squadrone and her armies from ports a thousand miles distant to take
possession of the capital and supersede the government of their adjoining neighbour?
Would there be no such thing as Russian or Austrian jealousy of British
aggrandisement, and might not our Quixotic labours in behalf of Mahometan
regeneration be possibly perplexed by the co-operation of those Powers? These
questions present to us the full extent of the dilemma in which we must be placed, if
we ever attempt an internal interference with the Ottoman territory. Without the
consent and assistance of Russia and Austria, we should not be allowed to land an
army in that country. We might, it is true, blockade the Dardanelles, and thus at any
time annihilate the trade of Constantinople and the Black sea. But our interests would
suffer by such a step; and the object of intermeddling at all is, of course, to benefit,
and not destroy our trade. We must, then, if we would remodel Turkey, act in
conjunction with Russia, Austria, and France. Would the two former of these powers
be likely to lend a very sincere and disinterested co-operation, or must we prepare for
a game of intrigues and protocols??
These are the probable consequences of our interposing in the case of Turkey; and,
from the danger of which, the only alternative lies in a strict neutrality. We are aware
that it would be a novel case for England to remain passive, whilst a struggle was
going on between two European powers; and we know, also, that there is a
predilection for continental politics amongst the majority of our countrymen, that
would render it extremely difficult for any administration to preserve peace under
such circumstances. Public opinion must undergo a change; our ministers must no
longer be held responsible for the every-day political quarrels all over Europe; nor,
when an opposition member of Parliament, or an opposition journalist,? wishes to
assail a foreign secretary, must he be suffered to taunt him with neglect of the honour
of Great Britain, if he should prudently abstain from involving her in the dissensions
that afflict distant communities.
There is no remedy for this but in the wholesome exercise of the people's opinion in
behalf of their own interests. The middle and industrious classes of England can have
no interest apart from the preservation of peace. The honours, the fame, the
emoluments of war belong not to them; the battle-plain is the harvest-field of the
aristocracy, watered with the blood of the people.
We know of no means by which a body of members in the reformed House of
Commons could so fairly achieve for itself the patriotic title of a national party, as by
associating for the common object of deprecating all intervention on our part in
continental politics. Such a party might well comprise every representative of our
manufacturing and commercial districts, and would, we doubt not, very soon embrace
the majority of a powerful House of Commons. At some future election, we may
probably see the test of no foreign politics applied to those who offer to become the
representatives of free constituencies. Happy would it have been for us, and well for
our posterity, had such a feeling predominated in this country fifty years ago! But
although, since the peace, we have profited so little by the bitter experience of the
revolutionary wars as to seek a participation in all the subsequent continental
squabbles, and though we are bound by treaties, or involved in guarantees, with
almost every state of Europe; still the coming moment is only the more proper for
adopting the true path of national policy, which always lies open to us.
We say the coming moment is only the more fit for withdrawing ourselves from
foreign politics; and surely there are signs in Europe that fully justify the sentiment.
With France, still in the throes of her last revolution, containing a generation of young
and ardent spirits, without the resources of commerce, and therefore burning for the
excitement and employment of war; with Germany, Prussia, Hungary, Austria,? and
Italy, all dependent for tranquillity upon the fragile bond of attachment of their
subjects to a couple of aged paternal monarchs; with Holland and Belgium, each
sword in hand; and with Turkey, not so much yielding to the pressure of Russia, as
sinking beneath an inevitable religious and political destiny surely, with such
elements of discord as these fermenting all over Europe, it becomes more than ever
our duty to take natural shelter from a storm, from entering into which we could hope
for no benefits, but might justly dread renewed sacrifices.
Nor do we think it would tend less to promote the ulterior benefit of our continental
neighbours than our own, were Great Britain to refrain from participating in the
conflicts that may arise around her. An onward movement of constitutional liberty
must continue to be made by the less advanced nations of Europe, so long as one of its
greatest families holds out the example of liberal and enlightened freedom. England,
by calmly directing her undivided energies to the purifying of her own internal
institutions, to the emancipation of her commerce above all, to the unfettering of
her press from its excise bonds would, by thus serving as it were for the beacon of
other nations, aid more effectually the cause of political progression all over the
continent than she could possibly do by plunging herself into the strife of European
wars.
For, let it never be forgotten, that it is not by means of war that states are rendered fit
for the enjoyment of constitutional freedom; on the contrary, whilst terror and
bloodshed reign in the land, involving men's minds in the extremities of hopes and
fears, there can be no process of thought, no education going on, by which alone can a
people be prepared for the enjoyment of rational liberty. Hence, after a struggle of
twenty year, begun in behalf of freedom, no sooner had the wars of the French
revolution terminated, than all the nations of the continent fell back again into their
previous state of political servitude, and from which they have, ever since the peace,
been qualifying to rescue themselves, by the gradual process of intellectual
advancement. Those who, from an eager desire to aid civilization, wish that Great
Britain should interpose in the dissensions of neighbouring states, would do wisely to
study, in the history of their own country, how well a people can, by the force and
virtue of native elements, and without external assistance of any kind, work out their
own political regeneration: they might learn too, by their own annals, that it is only
when at peace with other states that a nation finds the leisure for looking within itself,
and discovering the means to accomplish great domestic ameliorations.
To those generous spirits we would urge, that, in the present day, commerce is the
grand panacea, which, like a beneficent medical discovery, will serve to inoculate
with the healthy and saving taste for civilisation all the nations of the world. Not a
bale of merchandise leaves our shores, but it bears the seeds of intelligence and
fruitful thought to the members of some less enlightened community; not a merchant
visits our seats of manufacturing industry, but he returns to his own country the
missionary of freedom, peace, and good government whilst our steamboats, that
now visit every port of Europe, and our miraculous railroads, that are the talk of all
nations, are the advertisements and vouchers for the value of our enlightened
institutions.
In closing this part of our task, we shall only add, that, whatever other plea may in
future be allowed to induce us to embark in a continental conflict, we trust we have
proved, that so far as our commerce is concerned, it can neither be sustained nor
greatly injured abroad by force or violence. The foreign customers who visit our
markets are not brought hither through fear of the power or the influence of British
diplomatists: they are not captured by our fleets and armies: and as little are they
attracted by feelings of love for us; for that there is no friendship in trade is a
maxim equally applicable to nations and to individuals. It is solely from the
promptings of self-interest that the merchants of Europe, as of the rest of the world,
send their ships to our ports to be freighted with the products of our labour. The self-
same impulse drew all nations, at different periods of history, to Tyre, to Venice, and
to Amsterdam; and if, in the revolution of time and events, a country should be found
(which is probable) whose cottons and woollens shall be cheaper than those of
England and the rest of the world, then to that spot even should it, by supposition,
be buried in the remotest nook of the globe will all the traders of the earth flock;
and no human power, no fleets or armies, will prevent Manchester, Liverpool, and
Leeds, from sharing the fate of their once proud predecessors in Holland, Italy, and
Phnicia.? .
Part II.
Ireland.
Whilst within the last twenty years our sympathies have gone forth over the whole of
Europe in quest of nations suffering from, or rising up against the injustice of their
rulers; whilst Italy, Greece, Spain, France, Portugal, Turkey, Belgium, and Poland,
have successively filled the newspapers with tales of their domestic wrongs; and
whilst our diplomatists, fleets, and armies have been put in motion at enormous cost,
to carry our counsel, or, if needful, our arms, to the assistance of the people of these
remote regions; it is an unquestionable fact, that the population of a great portion of
our own empire has, at the same time, presented a grosser spectacle of moral and
physical debasement than is to be met with in the whole civilised world.
If an intelligent foreigner, after having travelled through England, Scotland, and
Wales, and enjoyed the exhibition of wealth, industry, and happiness, afforded
everywhere by the population of these realms, were, when upon the eve of departing
for the shores of Ireland, to be warned of the scenes of wretchedness and want that
awaited him in that country, he would naturally assume the cause in some such
question as this: The people are no doubt indolent, and destitute of the energy that
belongs to the English character? If it were answered, that, so far from such being
the case, the Irish are the hardiest labourers on earth; that the docks and canals of
England, and the railroads of America are the produce of their toil; in short, that they
are the hewers of wood and the drawers of water for other nationsthen the next
inquiry from this stranger would probably be in some such form as this:But their
soil no doubt is barren, and their climate inhospitable: nature has besides, probably,
denied to them the rivers and harbours which are essential to commerce? What
would be his surprise to be answered, that, in natural fertility, and in the advantages of
navigable streams, lakes, and harbours, Ireland is more favoured than England,
Scotland, or Wales.?
Where, then, shall we seek for the causes of the poverty and barbarism that afflict this
land? How shall we be able to account for the fact, that commerce and civilisation,
which have from the earliest ages journeyed westward, and in their course have even
stayed to enrich the marshes of the Adriatic and the fens of Holland, should have
passed over in their flight to the New World a spot more calculated by nature than
almost any other besides, to be the seat of a great internal and external trade?
We do not profess to be able to disclose all the precise causes of the depressed fate of
Ireland; still less do we pretend to offer a panacea for all the ills that afflict her. Our
object in introducing the subject here is, to show the absurdity and injustice of that
policy which leads us to seek amongst other nations for objects of compassion and
care, and to neglect the urgent demands that are made upon us at our very door.
The strongest ground of grievance that we have ever heard alleged against us by
intelligent Irishmen, unimbued with party feelings, is the total neglect and ignorance
of their country that prevail amongst the people of England. To the middle classes of
this country, as to an impartial tribunal, untainted by the venom of their political and
religious factions, a large portion of the Irish people look for the probable
regeneration of their unhappy country. Without this tardy effort of justice at our
hands, they will never be able to escape from the vortex of their social distractions.
This patriotic party, including so much of the intelligence and industry of Ireland,
claim from their fellow-subjects on this side of the Channel (and they have a right to
claim it), such a consideration of their country, its population and resources, its
history, institutions, and geographyin fact, just such a study of Ireland as shall give
them a knowledge of its anomalous physical and moral state.
It is almost incredible how little is known of this, one of the largest both in area and
population, of the four divisions of the kingdom. Let any one of our readers take a
person of average intelligence, and ask him which is the finest river of the United
Kingdom; he will answer, probably, the Thames, the Humber, or the Severn; it is ten
to one against his naming the Shannon.
We will venture to say that there are as many individuals in England conversant with
the city of New York and the course of the Hudson, as there are who are acquainted
with the topography of Limerick, and the banks of the largest river in the British
Empire.
The past fate of Ireland, like the present condition of its peoplepresent to our view
an anomaly that has no parallel in the history of nations. During all that period of time
which has sufficed to bring the other states in Europe to emerge from
barbarismsome to attain their zenith of glory, and again decay, others to continue at
the summit of prosperityIreland has never enjoyed one age of perfect security or
peace. She has, consequently, unlike every other nation, no era of literature,
commerce, or the arts to boast of; nay, she does no exhibit, in her annals, an instance
in which she has put forth in war a combined force to merit even the savage honours
of military or naval fame.
Poets have feigned a golden age for this, as for every other country; but it never
existed except in the pages of romance. Ireland never was, at any known period of her
history, more tranquil or happy than at this day. She has from the first been the
incessant prey of discord, bloodshed, and famine.
We, who are fond of digging deep into the foundations of causes, incline to assign as
one reason of the adverse condition of this island, the circumstance of the Romans
never having colonised it. That people, by deposing the petty chiefs, and gathering
and compressing their septs into one communionby inoculating the natives with a
love of disciplineby depositing amongst them the seeds of the arts, and imparting a
taste for civilisationwould probably have given to them that unity and consistency,
as one people, the want of which has been the principal source of all their weakness
and misfortune. Had the Romans occupied for three centuries such a country as this,
they would perhaps have left it, on their departure from Britain, more advanced in all
respects than it proved to be in the sixteenth century.
But whatever were the causes of the early degradation of this country, there can be no
doubt that England has, during the last two centuries, by discouraging the commerce
of Irelandthus striking at the very root of civilizationrendered herself responsible
for much of the barbarism that at the present day afflicts it.
However much the conduct of England towards the sister island, in this particular,
may have been dwelt upon for party purposes, it is so bad as scarcely to admit of
exaggeration.
The first restrictions put upon the Irish trade were in the reign of Charles II.; and from
that time down to the era when the United Volunteers of Ireland stepped forward to
rescue their country from its oppressors (the only incident, by the way, in the
chronicles of Ireland, deserving the name of a really national effort), our policy was
directed incessantly to the destruction of the foreign trade of that country. Every
attempt at manufacturing industry, with one exception, was likewise mercilessly
nipped in the bud. Her natural capabilities might, for example, have led the people to
the making of glass; it was enacted that no glass should be allowed to be exported
from Ireland, and its importation, except from England, was also prohibited. Her soil
calculated for the pasturing of sheep, would have yielded wool equal to the best
English qualities; an absolute prohibition was laid on its exportation, and king
William, in addressing the British Parliament, declared that he would do everything
in his power to discourage the woollen manufacture of Ireland. Down to the year
1779, we find that the export of woollen goods from that island remained wholly
interdicted.
Not only was her commerce with the different ports of Europe fettered by the
imposition of restrictions upon every valuable product that could interfere with the
prosperity of England; not only was all trade with Asia and the east of Europe
excluded by the charters which were granted to the companies of London; but her
ports were actually sealed against the trade of the American colonies. Although
Ireland presented to the ships of North America the nearest and the noblest havens in
Europe, and appeared to be the natural landing-place for the products of the New
World, her people were deprived of all benefitnay, they were actually made to
suffer loss and inconvenience from their favoured position; laws were passed,
prohibiting the importation of American commodities into Ireland, without first
landing them in some port of England or Wales, whilst the export of Irish products to
the colonies, excepting through some British port, was also interdicted.
If we add to this, that a law was enacted, preventing beef or live cattle from being
exported to England, some idea may be formed of the commercial policy of this
country towards Irelanda policy savouring more of the mean and sordid tyranny of
the individual huckster over his poorer rival, than of any nobler oppression that is
wont to characterize the acts of victorious nations.
Need we wonder that at this moment the entire foreign commerce of Ireland does not
much exceed the trade of one second-rate port of Scotland??
There are those who think the Irish genius is unsuited to that eager and persevering
pursuit of business which distinguishes the English people; and they argue that, but
for this, the natives of a region in all respects so favourable to commerce must have
triumphed over the obstacles that clogged their industry.
There is, we believe, one cause existing, less connected with the injustice of England,
and to which we are about to allude, why Ireland is below us, and other protestant
nations, in the scale of civilisation; yet, if we look to the prosperity of her staple
manufacturethe only industry that was tolerated by the Government of this
countryit warrants the presumption that, under similar favouring circumstances, her
woollens, or, indeed, her cottons, might, equally with her linens, have survived a
competition with the fabrics of Great Britain.
But there exists, apart from all intolerant or party feelings on the question, a cause,
and we believe a primary one, of the retrograde position, as compared with England
and Scotland, in which we find Ireland at the present day, in the circumstance of the
Roman Catholic religion being the faith of its people. Let us not be
misunderstoodour business does not lie in polemics, and far be it from us to
presume to decide which mode of worship may be most acceptable to the great
Author of our being. We wish to speak only of the tendency, which, judging from
facts that are before us, this church has to retard the secular prosperity of nations.
Probably there is no country in which the effects of the Catholic and Reformed
religions upon the temporal career of communities may be more fairly tested than in
Switzerland. Of twenty-two cantons, ten are, in the majority of the population,
Catholic; eight Protestant; and the remaining four are mixed, in nearly equal
proportions, of Protestants and Catholics. Those cantons in which the Catholic faith
prevails are wholly pastoral in their pursuits, possessing no commerce or
manufacturing industry beyond the rude products of domestic labour. Of the mixed
cantons, three? are engaged in the manufacture of cotton; and it is a remarkable
feature in the industry of these, that the Catholic portion of their population is wholly
addicted to agricultural, and the Protestant section to commercial pursuits. All the
eight Protestant cantons are, more or less, engaged in manufactures.
Nor must we omit to add, which every traveller in Switzerland will have seen, that, in
the education of the people, the cleanliness of the towns, the commodiousness of the
inns, and the quality of the roads, the Protestant cantons possess a great superiority
over their Catholic neighbours; whilst such is the difference in the value of land, that
an estate in Friburg, a Catholic canton, possessing a richer soil than that a Berne, from
which it is divided only by a rivulet, is worth one-third less than the same extent of
property in the latter Protestant district.
Such are the circumstances, as we find them in comparing one portion of the Swiss
territory with another. The facts are still more striking if we view them in relation to
the States immediately around them.
Switzerland, being an inland district far removed from the sea, is compelled to resort
to Havre, Genoa, or Frankfort for the supply of the raw materials of her industry,
which are transported by land three, four, or five hundred miles, through Catholic
States, for the purpose of fabrication; and the goods are afterwards reconveyed to the
same ports for exportation to America or the Levant, where, notwithstanding this
heavy expense of transit, and although Switzerland possesses no mineral advantages,
they sustain a prosperous competition with their more favoured, but less industrious,
neighbours and rivals.
If we refer to France, we shall find that a large dept of manufacturing industry has
been formed upon the extreme inland frontier of her territory on the Rhine, where her
best cottons are fabricated and printed, and conveyed to the metropolis, about three
hundred miles off, for sale. Alsace, the Protestant district we allude to, contains no
local advantages, no iron or coals; it is upwards of four hundred miles distant from the
port through which the raw materials of its manufactures are obtained, and whence
they are conveyed, entirely by land, passing through Paris, to which city the goods are
destined to be again returned. Thus are these commodities transported, overland, more
than seven hundred miles, for no other assignable reason, except that they may be
subjected to the labour of Protestant hands.
Germany gives us additional facts to the same purport. If we divide this empire into
north and south, we shall find the former, containing Prussia, Saxony, &c., to be
chiefly Protestant, and to comprise nearly all the manufacturing and commercial
interests of the country; whilst the latter are principally Catholic, and almost wholly
addicted to agriculture. Education, likewise, follows the same law here as in
Switzerland; for, whilst the Catholics amount to about twenty millions, and possess
but five universities, the Protestants support thirteen, with only a population of
fourteen millions.
If we turn to Catholic Italy, where there is very little manufacturing of any kind, we
yet find that the commerce of the country is principally in the hands of foreigners. The
merchants of Genoa, Naples, Trieste, &c., are chiefly British, Swiss, or Germans,
whose houses, again, have their own agents in the principal interior cities; so that the
trade of the Italian States is in great part transacted by Protestants. We need scarcely
add to these statements the fact, which all are acquainted with, that, in Ireland, the
staple manufacture is almost wholly confined to the Protestant province.
We shall probably be reminded of the former commercial grandeur of Spain and the
Italian republics. This was, however, to a great extent, the effect of monopolies, which
must, from their nature, be of transient benefit to nations, and, moreover, they
flourished prior to the complete triumph of the Reformation; and our object is merely
to exhibit a comparison between Protestant and Catholic communities of the same
period. Besides, Spain and Italy have left no evidences of the enlightened industry of
their people such as are to be seen, for example, to attest the energy of the Dutch, in
the canals and dykes of Holland.
We have thus briefly glanced at the comparative conditions of the Catholic and
Protestant interests in Europe; and, disclaiming, as we do, any theological purpose, we
trust we may demand for our argument, what is not often accorded to this invidious
topic, the candid attention of our readers. The above facts, then, go far to prove that,
in human affairs at least, the Reformed faith conduces more than Catholicism to the
prosperity of nations.
We shall not argue that the welfare of States, any more than of individuals, affords
proofs of spiritual superiority; we will admit that it does not; but, if it can be proved
from facts (as we think even our intelligent and ingenuous Roman Catholic readers
will agree we have done) that the Protestant is, more than the Catholic faith,
conducive to the growth of national riches and intelligence, then there must be
acknowledged to exist a cause, independent of misgovernment, for the present state of
Ireland, as compared with that of Great Britain, for which England cannot be held
altogether responsible.
The deficient education of a people is, no doubt, a circumstance that must tend, in
these days, when the physical sciences and the arts are so intimately blended with
manufacturing industry, and when commerce itself has become a branch of
philosophy, to keep them in the rear rank of civilised nations; but we think the
abhorrence of change that characterises Catholic States, and which we shall find not
merely to affect religious observances, but to pervade all the habits of social life, has
even a more powerful influence over their destinies.
In proof of this, if we take the pages of Cervantes and Le Sage, and compare the
portraits and scenes they have depicted, with the characters, costumes, and customs of
the present day, we shall find that the Spanish people are, after the lapse of so many
ages, in even the minutest observances, wholly unchanged. On the other hand, if we
look into Shakespeare, or examine the canvas of Teniers, we shall find that, during the
same interval of time, the populations of Holland and England have been
revolutionised in all the modes of life, so as scarcely to leave one national feature of
those ages for recognition in our day.
Ireland has clung tenaciously to her characteristics of ancient days.
There is a great use among the Irish, says Spenser, writing more than two hundred
years ago, to make great assemblies together upon a rath or hill, there to parley, as
they say, about matters and wrongs between township and township, or one private
person and another.Vol. viii. p. 399. Now, no person could, by possibility, pass six
months in the south of Ireland, during the present year, but he would be certain to
witness some gatherings of this nature. But who, that has travelled in that island, can
have failed to be struck with that universal feature in the dress of the peoplethe
great-coat? He maketh his mantle, says Spenser, speaking of the Irish peasant of his
time, his house; and under it covereth himself from the wrath of heaven, from the
offence of the earth, and from the sight of men. When it raineth it is his pent-house;
when it bloweth, it is his tent; when it freezeth, it is his tabernacle. In summer, he can
wear it loose; in winter, he can wrap it close; at all times, he can use it; never heavy,
never cumbersome.P. 367. We have ourselves seen the Irish of our own day, in the
midst of winter, wrapping the mantle close, and we have seen them spreading it
loosely in summer; we have seen the peasant, whilst at plough, obliged to quit one of
the stilts every minute for the purpose of adjusting the great-coat that was tucked
clumsily round his loins; and we have beheld the labourer at work, with his mantle
thrown inconveniently over his arms and shoulders; but we have never witnessed it
thrown aside. In truth, it is still the mantle that hides him from the sight of men; for,
like charity, it cloaks a multitude of defects in the garments beneath.
But it is not in mere externals that we shall find the character of Irish society
unchanged. In the manifestations of the passions, in the vehement displays of natural
feeling, there is, amidst the general amelioration of the surrounding world, alas! no
improvement here. To quote again from the pages of Spenser, an eye-witness: I
saw an old woman, which was his foster-mother, take up his head, whilst he was
quartered, and sucked up all the bloode that runne thereoute, saying, that the earthe
was not worthy to drinke it; and therewith, also steeped her face and breast, and tore
her hair, crying out and shrieking most terribly.Ibid. p. 381.
Let us compare the above scene, which was enacted at the execution of one of the
turbulent natives of the sixteenth century, with the following incident that occurred at
the late Rathcormac tithe tragedy:
I went up to inspect the haggart where the carnage occurred, and so awful a spectacle
I never witnessed; the straw, all saturated with human gore, so that blood oozed
through on the pressure of the foot; and, shocking to relate, the widow Collins was
seen to kiss the blood of her sons, imprecating God's vengeance on the murderers of
her children.Dub. Ev. Post, Dec. 23, 1834.
Who would imagine that more than two centuries have elapsed between the dates
when these parallel occurrences took place in one and the same country?
Viewing, as we confessedly do, the Roman Catholic religion to be a great operating
cause against the amelioration of the state of Ireland, it becomes an interesting
question, how it happens that we find its dogmas to be professed with so much zeal at
the present day in that country. How does it arise, that whereas, during the last three
centuries, history exhibits nation after nation yielding up its religion to those reforms
which time had rendered necessary, until nearly the whole of northern and western
Europe has become Protestant Ireland, notwithstanding so much contiguous
change, still clings, with greater devotion than ever, to the shattered tiara of Rome?
That such is the case is proved by the evidence of a trustworthy author, whose recent
travels in Ireland we shall have occasion to allude to.?
We fervently believe that persecutionperhaps honestly devised, but still
persecutionhas done for this Church what, under the circumstances, nothing besides
could have achieved; it has enabled it to resist, not only unscathed, but actually with
augmented power, the shocks of a free press, and the liberalising influence of the
freest constitutional government in Europe.
We shall be told that the epithet persecution no longer applies, since all civil
disabilities are removed from our Catholic fellow-subjects; but, we ask, does it not
still apply as much in principle, though not in degree, to the present condition of the
Irish Churchwhere six millions of Catholics are forced to see the whole tithe of
their soil possessed by the clergy of one million of Protestantsas it did to the
persecutions of the ancient martyrs, or to the auto-da-fs of modern Spain? Is not the
spirit of persecution the same, but modified to meet the spirit of the age?
If we would bring this case home to our own feelings, let us suppose that the arms of
the United States of America were to achieve the conquest of Great Britain; we will
further suppose that that country possessed an established church differing in faith
from our ownfor instance, let it be imagined to be of the Unitarian creed. Now,
then, we put it to the feelings of our countrymen, would they, or would they not,
regard it as persecution, if they saw the whole of the tithes of England diverted from
their present uses, to be applied to the support of a faith which they abhorred? Would
it not be felt as persecution to be compelled, not only to behold their cathedrals and
churches in the hands of the ministers of a (by them) detested creed, but the lands and
revenues which appertained to them, wrested from their present purposes, by the force
of a Government on the other side of the ocean? And, seeing these things, would it not
be felt and suffered as persecution, if the people of England, still clinging to a man to
their national Church, were impelled by conscience to erect other temples of worship,
and out of their own pockets to maintain their ejected and despised ministers?
But to come to the still more important question, we appeal to the breasts of our
readers, would they, under such circumstances, be likely to become converts to the
religion of their spoilers and oppressors? or would they not more probably nourish
such a spirit of resentment and indignation as would render impossible a calm or
impartial examination of its dogmas? And would not their children and their
children's children be taught to abhor, even before they could understand, the very
name of Unitarianism? But, pursuing our hypothesis, supposing all this to occur in
England, and that the nation were compelled, by the presence of sufficient army, to
submitwhat would the probable effects of such a state of things be upon the peace
and prosperity of the community? However excellent might be the laws and
institutions, however liberal and enlightened the policy, in other respects,of the
government set over us by the Americans, whatever commercial advantages might be
derived from a complete incorporation with the United Stateswould the people, the
church-loving people of those realms, be found to be quietly and successfully
pursuing their worldly callings, forgetting the grievances of their consciences? We
hope not! For the honour of our countrymen we fervently believe that all worldly
pursuits and interests would be, by them, and their sons, and their sons' sons, even
down to the tenth generation, abandoned; that agitation would be rife in the land, and
that every county in England would put forth its O'Connell, wielding the terrible
energies of combined freemen, until the time that saw such monstrous tyranny abated!
Persecution may be, as it often has been, the buttress of error; but all history proves
that it can never aid the cause of truth.
What has preserved the Jews a distinct people, scattered as they have been amidst all
the nations of the earth? No miracle, certainly; for they are now dissolving into the
ranks of Christians before the sun of American toleration;? and our country, but
especially the spot where we write, gives us a similar beneficent example in
comparison with other States. Nothing more than the universal and unintermitted
series of oppressions that characterised the conduct of every Government towards that
despised people, from the destruction of Jerusalem down to the last century, can be
necessary to account for the fact that the Hebrew people exceed, perhaps, at this
moment, in numbers, the population of Juda at the most flourishing period of its
history. Nor, if it were desired, during the eighteen centuries to come, to preserve the
Jews a separate people, could the wit or the philosophy of man devise a scheme to
prevent their amalgamating with the nations of the earth, other than by persevering in
the same infallible course of persecution.
Let them search the annals of religious persecution (and it is the most humiliating
chapter in the history of poor human nature), and we will challenge the advocates of
coercive dealings in matters of conscience to produce an instance where violence,
bribery, or secular power in any form, has ever aided the cause of true religion. To the
honour of the immaterial portion of our being, although the body may be made to
yield to these influences, the soul, disdaining all mortal fetters, owes no allegiance but
to itself and its Maker.
So long, then, as the Church of England possesses the whole of the religious revenue
of Ireland, there cannot benay, judging of the case as our own, there ought not to
bepeace or prosperity for its people; and, what is of still more vital importance,
there can be, judging by the same rule, no chance of the dissemination of religious
truth in that country.
Let us not be met by those unthinking persons who view tithes as religion, with the cry
about the destruction of the Protestant Church; we are of that Church; and we reckon
it amongst the happiest circumstances of our destiny that Providence has placed us in
a Protestant land. In our opinionand we have endeavoured to prove it from the
homely, but incontrovertible arguments of factsno greater temporal misfortune can
attach to a people of the present age than to profess the Roman Catholic religion; and
it is in order to give the Irish an opportunity of considering with that indifferency
which we believe with Locke is the indispensable prelude to the successful search
after truth, the doctrines of our reformed faith, that we would do them the justice, in
the first place, of putting them on a perfectly equal footing, as respects matters of
conscience, with their Protestant fellow-subjects.
We are not visionary enough to shut our eyes to the vast impediments in the way of
such a consummation as we have jumped to. These, however, do not in the least affect
the question as to its justice or expediency. The obstacles lie in the House of Peers,
and probably in the breast of the King. If the conscience of the latter should be
affected with scruples as to the binding nature of the coronation oath, precautions
might be taken to prevent a similar future obstacle on the demise of the crown. With
respect to the House of Lords, difficulties of a less august nature will have to be
encountered; for why should the fact be concealed, that the Church question, in
whichever way agitated, is one that concerns the interests of the aristocracy? Hence is
the difficulty: that whereas, we sincerely believe, if a canvass were made from house
to house throughout Great Britain, four-fifths of the middle classes of its people
would be found at once not interested in the temporalities of the Irish Church, and
willing to grant to their Catholic fellow-subjects of Ireland a complete equality of
religious privileges; on the contrary, if an appeal were to be made to the votes of the
House of Peers, four-fifths of that assembly would very likely oppose such a measure
of justice and peace; and probably that great majority of its members would be found
to be, immediately or remotely, interested in the revenues of that Church.
We would recommend the most ample concessions to be made to countervail the
obstacles of self-interest. There is no present sacrifice of a pecuniary nature that will
not be an ultimate gain to the middle and working classes of England, if it only tend to
pacify and regenerate Ireland.
Viewing the subject as a question of pounds, shillings, and pence (and it partakes a
great deal more of that character than folks are aware of), the people of England
would be gainers by charging the whole amount of the Church revenue of Ireland to
the Consolidated Fund, if by so doing they were only to escape the expense of
supporting an enormous army? for the service of that country.
But we are, from another motive of self-interest, far more deeply concerned in the
tranquillity and improvement of the sister kingdom: for it ought to be borne in view,
and impressed upon the minds of the industrious classes of this country, that, unless
we can succeed in laying the foundations of some plan for elevating the people of
Ireland to an equality with us, they will inevitably depress us to a level with
themselves. There cannot permanently be, in a free community, two distinct castes or
conditions of existence, such as are now to be found in this united empire. Already is
the process of assimilation going on; and the town in which we write furnishes,
amongst others, a striking example of the way in which the contagion of Irish habits is
contaminating, whilst the competition of that people is depressing, the working
classes of Britain.
Manchester is supposed to contain fifty thousand Irish, or the immediate descendants
of Irish. The quarter in which they congregate is, like the district of St. Giles's of
London, a nursery of all the customs that belong to savage life. In the very center of
our otherwise civilized and wealthy town, a colony which has acquired for its locale
the title of Little Ireland, exhibits all the filth, depravity, and barbarism that disgrace
its patronymic land. Nor is the evil confined within such limits. Its influences are felt
in the adulteration of character, and the lowering of the standard of living of our
artisans generally: it is a moral cancer, that, in spite of the efforts of science of
philanthropy to arrest its progress, continues to spread throughout the entire mass of
our labouring population.
No part of England or Scotland is exempt from its share in the natural consequences
of this terrible state of degradation to which the people of Ireland are reduced. There
is not a village or parish of the kingdom into which its famine impelled natives do not,
at certain periods of the year, penetrate to share the scanty wages of our peasantry;
thus dragging them down to their own level, and, in return, imparting to them the sad
secrets of their own depraved modes of life.
But great as this evil has hitherto been, it is only a subject of astonishment to us, that
the immigration of the Irish people into this portion of the empire has not been more
extensive: sure we are, from the accounts we have of the present state of the southern
portion of that island, that nothing short of Berkley's wall of brass can for the future
save us from an overwhelming influx of its natives.
Let those who are incredulous of our opinion consult the recent work on Ireland, from
which we are about to offer an extract or two for the perusal of our readers.
We look upon every writer who directs the attention of the people of England to the
facts connected with the present state of Ireland as a benefactor of his country. Even
should an author, for the sake of being read, or for party purposes, like Cobbett, throw
some exaggeration into his pictures of the horrors of this land, we still view him in the
useful capacity of a watchman, sounding the alarm of danger, scarcely too loud, to the
indifferent minds of Great Britain. Though, like the hydro-oxygen microscope, when
applied to physical objects, his descriptions magnify its social monsters, till their
magnitude terrifies the beholderstill the monsters are there: they are only enlarged,
and not created. In the purer elements of English society, such evils could not,
through whatever exaggerating medium, be discovered.
But the traveller from whom we are about to quote gives intrinsic evidences of not
only competent intelligence but strict impartiality and a sincere love of truth. We do
not think that he possesses in an eminent degree the organ of causality, as the
phrenologists call it; for he attributes as the ultimate cause of the miseries of Ireland
the want of employment for its people, no recollecting that this evil must have its
cause; but in the qualities of a careful and experienced observer of facts he is
unquestionably a competent authority.
These are his words in speaking of the remuneration of labour in Ireland: I am
quite confident that if the whole yearly earnings of the labourers of Ireland were
divided by the whole number of labourers, the result would be under this
sumfourpence a day for the labourers of Ireland.
Again, in speaking of the habitations of the peasantry of Ireland, the following is the
description given by the same author: The only difference between the best and
the worst of the mud cabins is that some are water-tight, and some are not; air-tight, I
saw none; with windows, scarcely any; with chimneysthat is, with a hole in the roof
for the smoke to escape throughas many perhaps with it as without it. As for
furniture, there is no such thing; unless a broken stool or two and an iron pot can be
called furniture. I should say that in the greater part of Leinster and Munster, and in
the flat districts of Connaught, bedsteads are far from general, and bed-clothing is
never sufficient.
Let us reflect for a moment on what would be the effects upon the condition of our
industrious population, if they were brought down to share one common average with
these labourers; a fate which, we repeat, they are doomed to suffer, unless by
imparting peace and prosperity to Ireland, we shall succeed in elevating her people to
our own level.
This intelligent traveller sums up his recital of all that he witnessed during a tour of
many months throughout the island (great part of which time he spent in unrestrained
intercourse with the peasantry), in these words, which, along with every other portion
of his volumes, do equal honour to his moral courage and philanthropy:
I, Henry David Inglis, acting under no superior orders, holding no government
commission; with no end to serve, and no party to please; hoping for no patronage,
and fearing no censure; and with no other view than the establishment of
truthhaving just completed a journey throughout Ireland, and having minutely
examined and inquired into the condition of the people of that countrydo humbly
report that the destitute, infirm, and aged form a large body of the population of the
cities, towns, and villages of Ireland: that, in the judgment of those best qualified to
know the truth, three-fourth parts of their number die through the effects of
destitution, either by the decay of nature accelerated, or through disease induced by
scanty and unwholesome food, or else by the attacks of epidemics, rendered more
fatal from the same causes: that the present condition of this large class is shocking
for humanity to contemplate, and beyond the efforts of private beneficence to relieve,
and is a reproach to any civilized and Christian country.
A christian country does he say? Posterity will doubt it! There is no such picture as
this of a permanent state of national existence to be found in any authentic history,
ancient or modern, Christian or pagan. We shall search the volumes of the most
accredited travelers in Russia,? Turkey, or India, and find no description of a people
that is no enviable, in comparison with the state of millions of our fellow-subjects in
Ireland. The natives of Moldavia and Wallachia, which provinces have been the
battle-fields for Turks and Christians for centuries, are now living in happiness and
plenty, when compared with the fate of the inhabitants of a country that has known no
other invader but England.
We lavish our sympathies upon the serfs of Poland, and the slaves of Turkey; but who
would not prefer to be one of these, to the perishing with hunger under the name of
freeman? We send forth our missionaries to convert the heathen; but well might the
followers of Mahomet or Zoroaster instruct us in the ways of charity to our poor
Christian brethren!
Far be in from us to say, with a celebrated French writer, that we distrust the
philanthropy of all those who seek in distant regions for objects of their charity; but
we put it to our countrymen, whether, in lending themselves to any scheme, having
benevolence for remote nations in view, whilst such a case as this stands appealing at
their doors, they are not, in the emphatic words of Scripture, taking the children's
meat and casting it to the dogs.
We shall be told that the hundreds of thousands of pounds that are sent annually to
remote regions are for the promotion of religion. But there cannot be religion where
there is not morality; and can morals survive in the starving community such as exists
in Ireland? No! and, therefore, we say, until the above proclamation of her desperate
sufferings be controverted (and who will gainsay it?) a copy of it ought to be affixed
to every public building, and to the doors of every church and chapel in particular of
England; and all attempts, of whatever description, to subsidise the charity of this
country, in behalf of alien nations, whilst this member of our own family, in the
extremity of want, supplicates for succour at our hands, should be denounced and put
aside by the common sense and humanity of the nation.
If not, if for more fanciful, because more distant, projects of benevolence, we neglect
our obvious duty towards these our fellow-countrymen, then will the sins and
omissions of their fathers be visited upon the future generations of Englishmen; for
assuredly will the accumulated ills of Ireland recoil upon their heads, until one
common measure of suffering shall have been meted out to both!
But we will not forget that our object in entering upon the consideration of this
subject was to illustrate the impolicy and injustice of the statesmen of this country,
who have averted their faces from this diseased member of our body-politic; and, at
the same time, have led us, thus maimed, into the midst of every conflict that has
occurred upon the whole continent of Europe. To give one example, let us only recur
to the year 1823, when the French invasion of Spain drew forth those well-known
powerful appeals of Brougham? to the ever-ready-primed pugnacity of his
countrymen, in which he exhausted his eloquence in the cause of war against France;
declaring, amongst similar flights, that we ought to spend our last shilling in behalf of
Spanish independence; whilst at the very same moment of time famine, pestilence,
and insurrection were raging, even to an unparalleled extent, in Ireland, whose natives
were driven to subsist on the weeds of the fields, and for whom a subscription fund
amounting to more than a quarter of a million was that very year raised by the people
of Great Britain.
Subsequently, as our readers know, our Government despatched an armament to the
succour of Portugal. We witnessed the departure of those troops from London, and
well do we remember the enthusiasm of the good citizens on that occasion. In the next
meeting of Parliament it was stated that this display of our power and magnanimity
towards an old ally cost upwards of a million sterling. Here was a sum that would
have sufficed to employ the starving peasantry of Ireland in constructing a railroad
fifty miles in length. What fruits have we to exhibit, in the present state of the
Peninsula, that can be said to have grown out of this expenditure?
But the worst effects of an intermeddling policy are, that we are induced at all times
to maintain an attitude, as it is termed, sufficiently formidable, in the face of Europe.
Thus, the navywhich, after the peace was very properly reduced, so that in 1817 it
comprised only 13,000 seamen and 6,000 marineswas, under the plea of the
disturbed state of Europe, from time to time augmented; until, in 1831, the estimate
amounted to 22,000 seamen and 10,000 marines; whilst the army, which in 1817 has
been cut down to 69,000 men, was, by successive augmentations, raised to 88,000
men in 1831.
Our limits do not allow us to go further into details upon this portion of our task. But
we cannot dismiss the subject altogether without a few observations upon the
remedies which are proposed for the present state of Ireland. That every quack has
his nostrum for the cure of poor Erin, is a common remark with her people; and
although we find the doctors, as usual, differ exceedingly in opinion, there are two
prescriptions which have been very numerously recommendedwe allude to a law
against absenteeism, and a poor law.
We should hail any measure that promised the slightest relief to the wretched people
of this country. But it is necessary to ask, Could these plans, through any law, be
efficaciously enforced? There is, we think much raving after impracticable legislation
nowadays. Let us see if these be not specimens of it.
We never yet met with a person who professed to understand how an Act of
Parliament could be framed, that, without committing the most grievous injustice and
cruelty, would be more than a dead letter against Irish absenteeism. Let us imagine
that a law was enacted to compel every owner of an estate in Ireland to reside upon
his property. Well, this would be imprisonment for life. No, is the answer: he might
range over the whole island, and even reside on the sea-coast, or, for a portion of the
year, in Dublin. Good: then he must have a passport, and at every move his person
must be cognized; and for this purpose a police, similar to the French gensdarmerie,
must be organized throughout the country. But the traders, the farmers, the
professional men, the tourists, the beggars, the commercial travellers, the
strangersall these, we suppose, would be subjected to the like surveillance? Oh, no!
must be the reply: that would be to obstruct the entire business of the country. Thus
this law falls to the ground, since the landowner might elude it under any of these
disguises.
But to approach the subject in another way. The enactment would not, of course, be
passed without some clauses of exceptions. It would be barbarous, for example, to
prohibit a man from changing his abode, if illness demanded it, or if his wife or
children were in that extremity. What, then, would be the market price of a doctor's
certificate, to transport a malade imaginaire to France or Italy? Again, if a Milesian
landlord pined for a trip to London, would not a subpna to attend some law process
be a favourite resource? Or a friend might summon him before a parliamentary
committee, or find him comfortable apartments in the rules of the Fleet. Fictitious
conveyances, nominal divisions of property, and a thousand other expedients, might
be named, for rendering nugatory this law, each one of which would, to a reasonable
mind, prove the impracticability of such a measure.
Let those who think that a poor's rate, sufficient to operate as a relief to the pauper
population, could be levied in the south of Ireland, peruse Inglis's description of the
present state of the province of Connaught. How would the rate be agreed upon, when
no one of the wretched framers would come forward to fix the amount? Or, if they did
agree to a levy, who would be bold enough to collect the rate? Who would distribute
it, where all are needy of its assistance? But, for the sake of contemplating the
probable effects of such a law, let us suppose that these difficulties were got over. We
believe that those who recommend a poor law as a remedy for Ireland are imperfectly
acquainted with its desperate condition.
The poor's rate of England had, two years ago, in various districts, reached fourteen
shillings in the pound; and, in one instance, it absorbed the entire rental of the land;
and this occurred in Buckinghamshire, within fifty miles of London, and where there
are rich farmers and landowners.
What, then, would be the effects of any poor law in a country where parish after
parish, throughout vast districts, contains not an inhabitant who tastes better food than
potatoes, or knows the luxury of shoes and stockings, or other shelter than a mud
cabin? We dread to contemplate the results which, in our judgment, would follow
such an attempt to ameliorate the lot of this population. As soon as a competent
provision for the poor were orderedsuch as a Christian legislature must assign, if it
touch the subject at allthe starving peasantry of Ireland, diverted from their present
desperate resources of emigration or partial employment in towns, would press upon
the occupiers of the soil for subsistence, with such overwhelming claims as to absorb
the whole rental in less than six months. What must follow, but that every person
owning a head of cattle or a piece of furniture, would fly to the cities; leaving the land
to become a scramble to the pauper population, which, in turn, abandoned to its own
passions, and restrained by no laws or government, would probably divide itself once
more into septs, under separate chieftains (the elements of this savage state are still in
existence in many parts of the south of Ireland), and commence a war of
extermination with each other. The days of the Pale and all its horrors would be again
revived; famine would soon, of necessity, ensue; the towns would be assailed by these
barbarous and starving clans; and the British Government would once more be called
on to quell this state of rapine with the sword.
Such, we conscientiously believe, would be the inevitable consequences of a measure
which, to the eye of the uninformed or unreflecting philanthropist, appears to be the
most eligible plan for the peace and prosperity of Ireland.
What Remedies, then, remain for this suffering country?
We shall pass by the cry for the repeal of the Union; because everybody knows that to
have been only used as an engine for the purpose of acquiring a power to coerce
England into other acts of justice. A Parliament in Dublin would not remedy the ills of
Ireland. That has been tried, and found unsuccessful; for all may learn in her history
that a more corrupt, base, and selfish public body than the domestic legislature of
Ireland never existed; and the very first declaration of the United Volunteers, when, in
1781, they took the redress of her thousand wrongs into their own hands, was to the
effect, that they resolved to use every effort to extirpate the corruptions that so
notoriously existed in the Irish Parliament; and one of the first acts of the same
patriotic body was to invest the Parliament House in Dublin, and at the point of the
bayonet, to extort from those native legislators a redress of their country's grievances.
To come, next, to the scheme of emigration. All must regard with feelings of
suspicion and disfavour any attempt to expatriate a large body of our fellow-
countrymen; and we hold such an antidote to be only like removing the slough which
has arisen from a wound, whilst the disease itself remains untouched.
But, unhappily, the maladies of Ireland have taken such deep root, that legislation
cannot hope, for ages to come, effectually to eradicate them; whilst here is a mode by
which hundreds of thousands of our fellow-creatures are eager to be enabled to escape
a lingering death. Surely, under such circumstances, this plan, which would leave us
room to administer more effectually to the cure of her social disorders, deserves the
anxious consideration of our legislature.
Here let us demand why some forty or fifty of our frigates and sloops of war, which
are now at a time of peace sunning themselves in the Archipelago, or anchoring in
friendly ports, or rotting in ordinary in our own harbours, should not be employed by
the Government in conveying these emigrants to Canada, or some other hospitable
destination? The expense of transporting an individual from Limerick to the shores of
America by such a method would probably not exceed two pounds. On arrival the
Government agents might probably find it necessary to be at the charge of his
subsistence for a considerable timeperhaps not less than twelve months.
Altogether, however, the expense of a project of emigration, on a scale of magnitude,
must be enormous. But, again, we say that any present sacrifice on the part of the
people of this country, by which the Irish nation can be lifted from its state of
degradation, will prove an eventual gain.
Contemporary with any plan of emigration, other projects for the future amelioration
of the fate of that miserable people must be entered upon by the British Parliament;
and we should strongly advocate any measure of internal improvement which, by
giving more ready access to the southern portion of the island, would throw open its
semi-barbarous region to the curiosity and enterprise of England. Steam navigation
has already given a powerful stimulus to the industry of the eastern maritime counties;
and if, by means of railroads, the same all powerful agent could be carried into the
center of the kingdom, there can be no doubt the English capital and civilization
would follow in its train. Every one conversant with the subject is aware how greatly
the pacification and prosperity of the Scotch Highlands were promoted by carrying
roads into these savage districts; and still more recently, how, by means of the steam
navigation of the lakes, and the consequent influx of visitors, the people have been
enriched and civilised. Similar effects would doubtless follow, if the facilities of
railroad travelling were offered to Ireland, whose scenery, hardly rivalled in Europe,
together with the frank and hilarious temperament of its people, could not fail to
become popular and attractive with the English traveller.
We will here introduce a scheme to the notice of our readers which, whilst we gladly
acknowledge with gratitude the source from whence it originated, we think deserves
the notice of our Government.
In the New York Courier and Enquirer newspaper of December 24, 1834, appeared a
letter headed Traverse Atlantic, which, after stating that the writer, on a recent visit
to Europe, had suffered a delay of ten days in ascending the French Channel, from
Finisterre to Havre, and of eight days in descending the Irish Channel, from Liverpool
to Cape Clear, says, he believes that on an average one-third or one fourth of the
time is wasted upon every Trans-Atlantic voyage in getting into, or out of, the
European ports now resorted to. The writer then proceeds as follows:
The commerce of America chiefly centres in the ports of Hamburgh, Havre, London
and Liverpool. Each of these is distant from the ocean and difficult of access. On the
western coast of Ireland there are several harbours far superior in every requisite. As,
for instance, the island of Valentia, which is the nearest point of land in Europe to
America. Between it and the main reposes an excellent receptacle for shipping of any
burden, approached by two easily practicable inlets, completely landlocked,
capacious, and safe. Situated immediately on the brim of the Atlantic, a perfectly
straight line can be drawn from this harbour to the port of New York, the intervening
transit unobstructed by islands, rocks, or shoals. The distance being less than two
thousand seven hundred miles may be traversed by steam in about eight days; and the
well-known enterprise of the American merchants renders it unnecessary for me to do
more than to intimate that they will avail themselves of every opening or inducement
that may arise to establish the first link of intercourse by a line of packet boats. ? ? ? ?
The extent of this undertaking has been stated as beyond the means of those likely to
engage in it. This seems to me incredible, when I advert to the facts that Ireland has a
population of eight millions, multitudes of whom are in beggary for want of work,
with wages at from fourpence to one shilling a day, and money, on the average, not
worth more than three per cent.; and recollect, at the same time, that the State of
South Carolina, one of the smallest in the American Confederation, with a population
of three hundred thousand, wages at five shillings sterling a day, and capital at seven
per cent. interest, has, unaided, and by private enterprise, constructed a railroad from
Charleston to Augusta, one hundred and forty-five miles in extent, at present the
longest in the world, which is travelled by locomotive engines in the course of ten
hours.
The advantages to accrue to Ireland in particular by thus opening a regular
communication for New York to London in twelve, and to Paris in fifteen days, are
incalculable. That island would become, of necessity, the thoroughfare between the
two hemispheres: and the occupation of the public mind in such an enterprise, and the
constantly increasing fruits of its progress, would do more to pacify the fearful
dissensions of the people, and ameliorate their most lamentable condition, than any
legislation of even the best disposed Parliament.
The above project, which, in the affluence of their enterprise, our American friends
have suggested for the benefit of Ireland, merits the attention of the landowners and
patriots concerned for the welfare of her people.
It has long been decided by the merchants and nautical, men engaged in the
intercourse between Liverpool and America, that steamboats? would be found capable
of navigating the Atlantic with perfect safety; and the more sanguine amongst those
interested in increasing the facilities of communication between the two countries
have gone so far as to predict that, in a dozen years' time, we may hope to witness the
arrival and departure of steamers twice a week between England and the United
States.
As any scheme of this nature must necessarily require that the vessels should take
their departure from the nearest points of approximation of the two hemispheres,
Ireland would thus become the starting-place for all Europe; and it is scarcely possible
to conceive anything that would be more calculated to enrich and civilise that country
than by thus irrigating it, as it were, with the constant tide of emigration to and from
America.
A railway, for the purpose here alluded to, would pass through the centres of Leinster
and Munster, intersecting the counties of Kildare, Queen's County, Tipperary,
Kilkenny, Limerick, Cork, and Kerry; and would pass within twenty miles of the port
of Limerick, and thirty miles from that of Cork, to both of which cities, it might
reasonably be expected, that branches would be carried by public subscription: thus,
not only would these two great commercial havens be connected with Dublin, but by
opening a direct communication with each other, it would afford a medium for traffic,
by steam, between the fifteen counties that are washed by that noble steam, the
Shannon, and the ports of Cork and Bristol; and, ultimately, by means of the Great
Western Railway, with London.
Railroads are already begun for connecting Liverpool with Southampton, by way of
Birmingham and London. The French have long been engaged in making surveys for
a railway from Havre, by way of Rouen (the Manchester of France), to Paris; and
although characteristic delays may arise to retard the completion of this, as of other
projects of mere usefulness, with that fanciful people, yet, as it is, perhaps, the only
line in all France that would prove a remunerating speculation, there can be no doubt
that it will be the first that is undertaken in that country.
Presuming this to be effected, then, by means of such a plan as is here recommended,
for constructing a line from Dublin to the extreme point of Munster, a traveller would
be enabled to transport himself from the French metropolis, vi Havre, Southampton,
London, Liverpool and Dublin, to Valencia Island, or any other point of embarkation
on that coast, in about sixty hours; and, as the voyage to New York would be
accomplished in about eleven or twelve days, the whole distance from Paris to
America, which now, upon an average, occupies forty days in the passage, would be
accomplished, by the agency of steam, in about a third of that time.
That such a project, if completed, would secure the preference of voyagers to all parts
of North America, not only from Britain, but from every quarter of Europe, must be
apparent; that all we have recommended is perfectly practicable we have no difficulty
in believing; and that a traffic, of such magnitude as is here contemplated, would have
the effect of imparting wealth and civilization to the country through which it passed,
all experience proves to be unquestionable.
But it is not merely the future benefit that must accrue to Ireland, from the
construction of a railroad through her provinces, that we should alone regard. The
presence support of her unemployed peasantry is another cogent motive for some such
undertakings; for, unless a diversion of the surplus labour from the land be effected,
through the employment of English capital amongst its population, no change can be
attempted in the agricultural economy of Ireland. There is not, absolutely in the
present densely crowded state of her rural inhabitants, elbow-room, so to speak,
sufficient for readjusting their position. Yet there are reforms indispensably requisite
to the agricultural prosperity of the island. The farming implements of its people are,
for example, notoriously inferior, requiring twice the labour, both of men and cattle,
of our own; yet, how shall we hope to see any improvements effected in these, by
which the demand for labour shall be temporarily diminished, whilst one-half of the
peasantry is perishing for want of work?
Again: the farms are so minutely subdivided, to meet the desperate competition of a
people who possess no resource but the land to preserve them from famine, that their
occupiers are destitute altogether of capital, and aim at no other end but to secure a
daily subsistence on potatoes.
Under a better system, the cultivation of flax might be extended almost indefinitely.
At present, the estimated value of the annual production of this raw material of their
staple manufacture is about 1,500,000, which is yielded from one hundred thousand
acres of landnot one-tenth of the area of a moderate-sized country.? But how can
we apply a remedy to these, or the other evils of the soil, amidst a ferocious and
lawless community, that visits with fire and sword the prdial reformer?
We confess we see no hope for the eventual prosperity of this country, except in the
employment of a portion of its people, through the instrumentality of English capital,
in the pursuit of manufactures or commerce. Of capital they are literally more
destitute, in some parts of the west coast of the island, than are the North American
Indians on the banks of the Mississippi; as an instance in proof of which, it may be
state that, in a recent Government survey of that quarter, a vessel of war was the first
to discover some of the finest fishing stations to be found in the British waters; and
yet the natives of the neighbouring shores possess not the means of procuring boats or
nets, through which to avail themselves of these treasures!
Capital, like water, tends continually to a level; and, if any great and unnatural
inequality is found to exist in its distribution over the surface of a community, as is
the case in this United Kingdom, the cause must, in all probability, be sought for in
the errors or violence of a mistaken legislation. The dominant Church, opposed to the
national religion, is, we conscientiously believe, in this case the primary existing
cause of this discrepancy. Capitalists shrink, with all the susceptibility of the
barometer in relation to the natural elements, from the storms and tempests of party
passion; but now infinitely beyond all other motives must this privileged class be
impelled, by the impulses of feeling and taste, to shun that atmosphere where the
strife of religious discord rages with a fury unheard of in any other land!? There
cannot be prosperity for Ireland, until the law, by equalizing the temporalities of
Catholics and Protestants, shall have removed the foundation of this hideous
contention.
To this consummation we must be ultimately driven; for nothing short of this will
content the people of Ireland, because less would be short of the full measure of
justice. We advocate no spoliation; let the vested rights of every individual be
respectedespecially let no part of the tithes fall to the merciless grasp of the
landlords of Ireland, who, with many exceptions, may be regarded as the least
deserving body of its people. But let the British Parliament assert the right to the
absolute disposal of the Irish Church revenues, excepting in cases of private property;
and let an equal government grant be applied to the religious instruction of both
faiths, according to the numbers of each, as is the rule in France and Belgium? at the
present day.
Such a regulation, by preventing Englishmen from holding benefices in Ireland (there
would be no longer the temptations of rich livings and sinecures), would lead to a
beneficial influence of the Protestant ministers in that country; for what could so
much tend to destroy all hope of their proselyting the poor Catholics, what in fact
could be so much calculated to make those ministers despised and rejected, as to
send amongst them, as is now the case, and ever has been, strangers, who, whatever
may be their worth (and we believe the Church of England clergy, as a class, to be at
this moment about the best body of men in Ireland), are ignorant of the character and
habits, nay, even of the very language of the people? What chance have these in
competition with the Roman Catholic priesthood, who, drawn from the middle or
lower ranks of their countrymen, after an appropriate education in Maynooth College
(where are always four or five hundred of such students), are sent back to, perhaps,
their native village, to resume the personal and familiar acquaintance of its
inhabitants?
Would the spiritual interests of the Scotch people be consulted by displacing their
present excellent native pastors in favour of the younger sons of English noblemen?
If it be objected that the English Establishment is involved in the fate of the Church of
Ireland, we answer, that the circumstances of the two are as opposite a complexion as
light is to darkness. In England , the National Church comprises within its pale a great
majority of the people; whilst in Ireland we behold a State religion upheld for the
exclusive benefit of one-seventh of its population. Can we on the face of the earth find
another example of an established church opposed to the consciences of six-sevenths
of its supporters; for although the revenues may not go directly from their pockets,
could thepresent income of the Protestant Church be raised without the Catholic
population?
What should we say if the Government of Austria, Russia, or Turkey (for each of
these has a state religion, differing from ours, and from one another, and yet
pronounced by the law of the land to be the only true belief), were found to be
applying the whole of the religious revenues of its country to the service of the faith
of one-seventh of its subjects? What should we think if the Russian Government were
to bestow the entire of the property of the Greek Church upon the Catholic or
Armenian fraction of its people? In every country we find the established religion in
harmony with the cansciences of its people, excepting in Ireland, which, in this, as in
other respects, presents to us an anomaly, which has no resemblance amongst the
nations of the world.
In concluding our observations upon this portion of our task, we shall briefly
askDoes not the question of Ireland, in every point of view, offer the strongest
possible argument against the national policy of this country, for the time during
which we have wasted our energies and squandered our wealth upon all the nations of
the Continent: whilst a part of our own Empire, which, more than all the rest of
Europe, has needed our attention, remains to this hour an appalling monument of our
neglect and misgovernment? Add to this, that our efforts have been directed towards
the assistance of States for whose welfare we are not responsible; whilst our
oppression and neglect have fallen upon a people over whom we are endowed with
the power and accountable privileges of governmentand the extent of the injustice
of our statesmen becomes fully disclosed.
The neglect of those duties which, in such a case devolve upon the governor, as in the
instance of every infringement of moral obligations, bears within it the seeds of self-
chastisement. The spectacle of Ireland, operating like a cancer in the side of
England and Poland, paralyzing one arm of the giant that oppresses herof the two
millions of Negroes in the United States, whose future disposal baffles the ingenuity
of those statesmen and philanthropists who would fain wash out this indelible stain
upon their religion and government:these are amongst the lessons which, if viewed
properly, serve to teach mankind that no deed of guilt or oppression can be
perpetrated with impunity even by the most powerfulthat early or late, the
invincible cause of truth will triumph against every assault of violence or injustice.
May the middle classes of Great Britain, in whom the government of this country is
now vested, profit, in the cause of Ireland, by these morals of past history!
Part III
America.
It is a singular fact that, whilst so much of the time and attention of our statesmen is
devoted to the affairs of foreigners, and whilst our debates in Parliament, and the
columns of our newspapers, are so frequently engrossed with the politics of petty
States, such as Portugal, Belgium, and Bavaria, little notice is taken of the country
that ought, beyond all others, to engage the attention, and even to excite the
apprehension of this commercial nation.
A considerable portion of our countrymen have not yet reconciled themselves to the
belief that the American colonies of 1780 are now become a first-rate independent
power. The more aged individuals of this party, embracing, of course, a considerable
section of the House of Peers, possess a feeling of half pique and half contempt
towards the United States, some-what analogous to that which the old Scotch Jacobite
lady described by Burns indulged with reference to Great Britain more than half a
century after it had rebelled, as she persisted in designating it, against the legitimate
rule of the Stuarts.
We have met with persons of this very respectable and influential party who believe
conscientiously that the Americans threw off the yoke of the mother country, merely
with a view to escape the payment of certain sums of money due to English creditors;
? and that they have ever since been struggling after a dubious kind of subsistence by
incurring fresh debts with us, and occasionally repaying our credulity in no very
creditable coin. If these be told that the people of the United States constitute our
largest and most valuable commercial connectionthat the business we carry on with
them is nearly twice as extensive as with any other people, and that our transactions
are almost wholly conducted on ready money termsthey will express surprise; but
then they will predict that no good will arise ultimately from trading with Yankee
Republicans.
If a word be said about the well-known religious and moral character of the
Americans, these worthy people with stop you with the exclamation of, How can
there be religion or morality in a country that maintains no established church?
Offer to enter into an argument with these spirits of olden time, or to adduce evidence
in reference to the present condition of the American States, and ten to one, you will
find that they have read the works of no authors or travellers upon that country, with
the exception of those of Moore, Mrs. Trollope, and Basil Hall. If the news-rooms and
the libraries that are under the direction of this prejudiced party be consulted, the
former will be found to contain no specimens of the millions of newspapers that issue,
cheap as waste paper, from the press of the United States: whilst, from the shelves of
the latter, all books ? calculated to give a favourable picture of the state of its
flourishing community are scrupulously excluded.
Should we look into the periodical journals which are under the patronage of the same
class, we shall find the United States' news but rarely admitted to their columns,
unless it be of a nature that tends to depreciate the character of Republican
institutions, or serves as an occasion for quizzing the social peculiarities of American
society.
Yet it is to the industry, the economy, and peaceful policy of America, and not to the
growth of Russia, that our statesmen and politicians, of whatever creed, ought to
direct their anxious study; for it is by these, and not by the efforts of barbarian force,
that the power and greatness of England are in danger of being superseded; yes, by the
successful rivalry of America, shall we, in all probability, be placed second in the
rank of nations.
Nor shall we retard, but rather accelerate this fate, by closing our ears, or shutting our
eyes, to all that is passing in the United States. We regard it as the first duty of every
British statesman, who takes an enlightened interest in the permanent grandeur of his
country, however unpalatable the task may prove, to weigh, in comparison with all the
features of our national policy, the proceedings in corresponding measures on the
other side of the Atlantic. Possibly we may not, after all, be enabled to cope with our
more fortunate rivals in the energy or wisdom of their commercial legislation, owing
to the embarrassments and burdens with which we are encumbered; but still, it only
the more becomes the character for high moral courage that belongs to us to strive to
understand from which quarter danger is the most to be apprehended.
By danger we do not, of course, allude to warlike hostilities. England and America are
bound up together in peaceful fetters by the strongest of all the ligatures that can bind
two nations to each other, viz., commercial interests; and which, every succeeding
year, renders more impossible, if the term may be used, a rupture between the two
Governments. This will be sufficiently apparent when we state that a population of
upwards of a million of the inhabitants of this country, supported by the various
branches of the cotton industry, dependent for the supply of the raw material upon the
United States, ? would be deprived of subsistence; at the same time that a capital of
thirty millions sterling would for the moment be annihilatedif such a catastrophe
were to occur as the suspension of the commerce between England and the United
States; whilst the interests of the Americans would be scarcely less vitally affected by
the same circumstance.
But we allude to the danger in which we are placed, by being overshadowed by the
commercial and naval ascendancy of the United States. It has been through the
peaceful victories of mercantile traffic, and not by the force of arms, that modern
States have yielded to the supremacy of more successful nations. Thus the power and
civilisation of maritime Italy succumbed to the enterprise of Spain and Portugal; these
again were superseded by the more industrious traders of Holland; who, in their turn,
sank into insignificance before the gigantic growth of the manufacturing industry of
Great Britain; and the latter power now sees, in America, a competitor in every
respect calculated to contend with advantage for the sceptre of naval and commercial
dominion.
Whether we view the rapid advance of the United States, during the last forty years, in
respect of population or wealth, it is equally unparalleled in any other age or country.
The past history, however, of this country is so well known, indeed, it is compressed
into so short a space of recent history, that it would be trite to dwell upon it: our
object is to draw a short comparison between the future prospects of the two
countries.
The population of the United States was, at the first census, taken in 1790, found to be
3,929,328; and, in 1830, the number had, according to the fifth Government return,
reached 12,856,171, exhibiting an increase, during the last ten years, of thirty-three
per cent.; that is, doubling itself in rather less than twenty-five years. ? In 1831, the
population of the British Islands amounted to 24,271,763, being an increase of about
fourteen per cent. upon the enumeration for 1821. Looking, therefore, to the present
proportionate increase of the two countries, and considering the relative
circumstances of each, it may be predicted that, in thirty years, the numbers of the two
people will be about equal; and we further find that, at the same ratio of
augmentation, and making no allowance for the probable increase of emigration from
Europe, the population of the United States will, in seventy years from this timethat
is, during the lifetime of individuals now arrived at maturityexceed one hundred
million.
These circumstances demonstrate the rapid tendency towards a superiority, so far as
numbers go; but we apprehend that, in respect to the comparison of our commercial
prospects with those of America, the position of Great Britain does not, according to
facts which we have to state, wear a more flattering aspect.
We find, by a table in the American Almanack for 1835, that the exports from the
United States for the year ending the 25th September, 1833, amounted to 90,140,000
dollars, or about twenty millions sterling of our money.
The British exports for the same period were 47,000,000, of which thirty-six
millions were of home commodities or manufactures, whilst the remaining eleven
millions consisted of foreign and colonial produce. But it will be proper to exclude the
colony trade from the question altogether, unless, in order to state the matter fairly,
we agree to take into account, at the same time, the inhabitants of our dependencies,
which would not improve our case.
Now, in order to institute a fair comparison between the respective trades of the two
countries, it will be necessary to bear in mind that, at the above period, the population
of America was about fourteen millions, whilst that of the British empire may be
reckoned to have been twenty-five and one-half millions.
We arrive, then, at this result, that, whilst our population, as compared with that of the
United States, is as 25 to 14, ? our commerce bears the proportion from 36 to 20.
Further, if we compare the mercantile navy of Britain with that of America, we find
the tonnage of the former, in 1832, to have been 2,261,860; whilst that of the latter, in
1833, amounted to 1,439,450 tons; by all which it appears clear that America is, in
proportion to its population, at this moment, carrying on as extensive a commerce as
England, or any other State in the world.
But we should take a very inadequate view of the comparative progress of the two
nations, unless we glanced at other circumstances, which will effect very oppositely
the career of England and the United States in their future race of commercial rivalry.
This Republican people presents the only example of pastas we believe it will
prove of futurehistory, in which a nation has honourably discharged its public debt;
and the greatest financial pressure its Government will in future have to contend
against, singular as the fact may appear to us, is the difficulty of applying its surplus
treasure impartially to the services of the separate States. The time is gone by, we
believe, when people could be found to argue that a national debt is a national
blessing. Sure we are that, in our case, no person possessing sound reason will deny
that we, who find it necessary to levy upwards of thirty millions annually upon the
necessaries of life, must be burdened with grievous disadvantages, when brought into
commercial competition with the untaxed labour of the inhabitants of America.
But it is not only the load of debt, heavy as that is, that we have to contend with; our
oppressive public establishments are, throughout, modelled, unnecessarily, we
believe, for the service of the commonwealth, upon a scale enormously
disproportioned to those of our more economical rivals. We will pass by the whole of
our civil expenditure, because we have not space for the detailed notice of its
individual items; and we shall proceed to notice, as more connected with the design of
this pamphlet, our army and navy, as compared with the military and naval forces of
the United States.
We find, from a table in Reuss's Statistics of the United States, that the number of
seamen in the American mercantile navy is estimated at 86,000; whilst the States
Government employs, in vessels of war, 6,000 ? men. The British merchant service,
exclusive of the colonial registry, supports 140,000 sailors; and the number voted for
the royal navy, in 1833, was 27,000 men. Thus, then, we arrive at the unsatisfactory
result that, whilst in America the Government, as compared with the merchant
service, contains in the proportion of hands rather less than one in fourteen, the
number of men employed in the royal navy of Britain, in comparison with the
quantity supported by the merchant service, is nearly in the ratio of one to five.
The royal navy of England actually in commission at this time (see the United Service
Magazine for February) consists of one hundred and forty-eight vessels of war, of
which there appear to be, according to the same authority, forty-six in the different
harbours of Great Britain, thirty-three in the Mediterranean, thirteen on the coast of
Africa, ? twenty-seven in the West Indies, and the remainder in various other
destinations.
We find, in the American Almanack of 1835, the United States navy given as twenty-
one ships of war, of the following descriptions:One line-of-battle ship, three
frigates, ten sloops, seven schooners.
It appears, then, that our royal navy contains, as nearly as possible, seven times as
many ships as are to be found in the Government service of America.
Now, whatever objections may be urged with respect to other branches of
expenditure, against a comparison of our burdens with the corresponding economy on
the other side of the Atlantic, we think no reasonable mind will deny that it is by
reference to the commerce of a people alone that we can form a correct judgment of
their policy, so far as the marine service is concerned, and judge of their ability to
support permanently their naval establishments.
The disadvantageous nature of our position, in comparison with that of America, will
be better understood, if we repeat in two words, as the substance of what we have
proved from the foregoing figures, that, whilst the population, exports, tonnage, and
mercantile seamen of Great Britain are not double those of the United States, our
royal navy is about six times as great as the corresponding Government force of that
country.
But, if we proceed to a comparison of the land forces, we shall find them of exhibit a
yet more striking disproportion in the burdens of the two nations.
The entire military service of America comprises rather less than 7,000 men. In 1833,
the Parliament of Great Britain voted 90,000 soldiers for the army of this country.
Here, then, we perceive the odds arestill bearing tin mind the population, &c., of
the two countriesas nearly as possible six to one against us.
If we had the space, however, to allow of our entering into a comparison of details,
we should find that the proportion of our officers greatly exceeds the above ratio. It
will suffice to prove this, when we add, that the number of our commissioned officers,
alone, at this time, exceeds the entire amount of the army of the United States; and of
these we see, by the Army List for1835, that 2,087 ar field-officers of and above the
rank of major!
To render the comparison of the respective burdens of the two people more simple
and complete, we shall add their expenditure under these heads.
In the budget of 1833, the army and navy estimates of Great Britain were as
follows:
Army . . . . . . 7,006,496
Navy . . . . . . 4,505,000
Ordnance . . . . . 1,634,817
making a total of 13,146,313, for these warlike purposes.
In 1832, according, to the American Almanack for 1835, the military service of the
United States, including fortifications, arsenals, armouries, ordnance, internal
improvements, &c., cost 1,134,589, whilst the navy estimate was for 817,100,
making a total of 1,951,689.
Thus, it appears, that our gross expenditure, under the United States heads, is in the
ratio of six and a-half to one, as compared with that of Americaa country, be it
repeated, whose population, trade, and registered tonnage are more than the half of
our owna country , too, whose public debt is cancelled, whilst ours amounts to
nearly eight hundred millions!
But it will be said that our local position making it necessary to guard our shores with
this demonstration of power, and our colonies calling for a vigilant protection, render
unfair a comparison of this kingdom with the United States. We believe it might be
shown that the dependencies of Great Britain are, at this moment, and in future are
destined still more to be, the source of a considerable amount of taxation and
pecuniary loss to the mother country; and we trust that some abler pen will be applied
to the elucidation of this important question.
With respect to our proximity to the Continent, we recommend the experiment to be
tried, whether that need necessarily embroil us in continental politics. Let us imagine
that all our ambassadors and consuls were instructed to take no further share in the
domestic concerns of European nations, but, throwing overboard the question of the
balance of poweras we have long done that equally absurd bugbear of our
ancestors, the balance of tradeto leave all those people to their own quarrels, and to
devote their attention, exclusively after the example of the Americans, to the
commercial interests of their country. This might prevent our diplomatists displaying
their address in finessing with Metternich or Pozzo di Borgo; it might save the bones
of our couriers, who now scour the continent of Europe, carrying despatches and
protocols; and it might enables us to dispense with the services of one half of he
establishment at the Foreign Office. But will any one who understands the subject
pretend to tell us that our trade would suffer by such a change?
Or if we imagine that our army and navy were reduced one-half, in consequence of
this improvement of our policy, does any person seriously apprehend that these
islands would be in danger of being molested by any European power? If such there
be, let him recollect that the British Empire contains a population of twenty-five
millions of free people, compressed within a space of little more than three hundred
miles squareprobably a denser crowd of human beings than was ever found upon a
similar area; and, further, let it be borne in mind, that railroads are now in progress for
connecting one extremity of England with the other, in such a way, that not only any
required force of men, but the entire munitions of war, may be transported, in twelve
hours, from Lancashire or Yorkshire to the coast of Sussex of Kentthus converting,
as it were, the entire island into a fortified position of such wonderful strength that the
genius of Vanban or Marlborough could not have conceived anything so formidable.
Which is the power of the Continent that will make a descent upon a people placed in
such an attitude?
But supposing even that such a scheme should be contemplated, it will be owned, we
suppose, that some preparation for so mighty a conquest would be necessary, which
must afford us the necessary time for preparations of defence. No one will content
that a fleet and an army of sufficient magnitude to pounce upon England for its prey,
could be conjured up on the scene, like the creations of harlequin's wand, without the
spectators knowing, or caring to know, that the machinery for so grand a performance
had been long in contrivance.
Besides, is it not apparent that henceforth the pressure of their own domestic affairs
will engross the resources, and will impair the external power of all the Governments
of Europe? Reform Bills will be demanded by their people, but they will not be
obtained without bloodshed; and all must foresee that the struggle between the
antagonist principles of feudalism and constitutionalism is inevitable throughout the
whole of the Continent.
But to recur to the subject of America. It might be said that the primary cause of all
the prosperity and happiness of its people is to be found in the wisdom of that advice
which we have prefixed for the motto of this pamphlet. Happily for that nation, this
precept has been religiously obeyed; for never have the political concerns of other
States been suffered for one hour to divert the United States' Legislature from the
pursuit of the just interests of its own people. The results may be seen, not only in
unparalleled advances in wealth and civilisation at home, but in the fact we have just
demonstrated, and which, we doubt not, will surprise most of our readers, that even
the foreign commerce of this people is, in proportion to population, as great, or
greater, than our own, notwithstanding our battles by land and by sea, and
notwithstanding those expensive fruits of our victories, the colonies, that east, west,
north, and south own our dominion!
It is question of very considerable interest to us, whether America will continue her
career as a manufacturing country, after the protective duties, which have professedly
created her present cotton and other interests, shall have, in pursuance of the recent
tariff law, been partially repealed.
It is the opinion of some writers, whose works are entitled to deference, that the
United States cannot for centuries become our rivals in manufactures. They argue
that, with an unlimited extent of unsettled territory to tempt the inhabitants to engage
in the natural labour of agriculture, they will not be induced, unless for much higher
wages than in England, to follow the more confined and irksome pursuits of the
factory or workshop.
But does not the present industry of the population of the New England States tend to
prove that there is a disposition, in the people of the older portions of this country, to
settle down into the pursuits incident to towns at an advanced stage of society, and
leave to agriculture the natives of the newer States? We shall find that the exports
from Boston compriseamong other articles of domestic manufacture equally
unconnected with the system of factory labourannually, about 3,500,000 pairs of
boots and shoes, 600,000 bundles of paper, together with a large quantity of cordage,
nails, furniture, &c.
We are inclined, however, to view the natives of the maritime portion of the Union,
but particularly the inhabitants of the New England States, as eminently commercial
in their tastes and characteristics; and, as suchlooking to the amount of capital at
present embarked in their cotton manufacture, as well as to the circumstances of the
raw material being the produce of their own soil, and bearing in mind the prodigious
increase that is taking place in the numbers of their peoplewe profess to see no
prospect of this our own staple industry being abandoned; and, if not given up, we
may expect, from the well-known and well-deserved panegyric paid by Burke to the
enterprise of the New Englanders, in prosecuting the whale-fishing, that the
competition on the part of such a people will be maintained with energy.
The capital employed in the various branches of the cotton manufacture in the United
States is, according to a calculation for 1832, in Reuss's Statistics of America, in
amount about 11,000,000; and the consumption of raw cotton is estimated at
173,800 bales, or about one-fifth of all the growth of the country, and, as nearly as
possible, a fifth of the quantity worked up, during the same year, in Great Britain.
The greater portion of all the products of this labour is consumed at home: the rest is
exported in the shape principally of heavy calicoes, that have sustained a competition
with our own fabrics in the Mediterranean and the East.
Some occasional shipments of low yarns have been made to this country; but these
transactions have not been of considerable magnitude.
Bearing in mind that the supply of the raw material of nearly one-half of our exports
is derived from a country that threatens to eclipse us by its rival greatness, we cannot,
whilst viewing the relative positions of England and the United States at this moment,
refrain from recurring to the somewhat parallel cases of Holland and Great Britain,
before the latter became a manufacturing State, when the Dutchman purchased the
wool of this country, and sold it to us again in the form of cloth. Like as the latter
nation became at a subsequent period, we are now overwhelmed with debts,
contracted in wars, or the acquisition of colonies, whilst America, free from all
burdens, as we were at the former epoch, is prepared to take up, with far greater
advantages, the fabrication of their own cotton as we did of our wool. The Americans
possess a quicker mechanical genius than even ourselves (such, again, was the case
with our ancestors, in comparison with the Dutch), as witness their patents, and the
improvements for which we are indebted to individuals of that country in
mechanicssuch as spinning, engraving, &c. We gave additional speed to our ships,
by improving upon the naval architecture of the Dutch; and the similitude again
applies to the superiority which, in comparison with the British models, the
Americans have, for all the purposes of activity and economy, imparted to their
vessels.
Such are some of the analogous features that warrant the comparison we have
instituted; but there are other circumstances of a totally novel character, affecting in
opposite degrees the destinies of these two great existing commercial communities,
which must not be lost sight of.
The internal improvement of a country is, undoubtedly, the first and most important
element of its growth in commerce and civilisation. Hence our canals have been
regarded by Dupin as the primary material agents of the wealth of Great Britain. But a
new inventionthe railwayhas appeared in the annals of locomotion, which bids
fair to supersede all other known modes of land transit; and, by seizing at one, with all
the energy of a young and unprejudiced people, this greatest discovery of the age, and
planting, as it were, its fruits first throughout the surface of their territory, the
Americans have made an important stride in the career of improvement, in advance of
every nation of Europe.
The railroads of America present a spectacle of commercial enterprise, as well as of
physical and moral triumph, more truly astonishing, we consider, than was ever
achieved in the same period of time in any other country. Only in 1829 was the
experiment first made, between Liverpool and Manchester, of applying steam to the
navigation of land, so to speak, by means of iron railways, for the conveyance of
passengers and merchandise: and now, in 1835, being less than seven years after the
trial was first made and proved successful, the United States of America contain
upwards of seventeen hundred miles of railroads in progress of construction, and of
which no less than one thousand miles are complete and in actual use. ?
The enthusiasm with which this innovation upon the ancient and slower method of
travelling was hailed in Americaby instituting a newspaper expressly for its
advocacy, and by the readiness of support which every new project of the kind
encounteredevinced how well this shrewd people discovered at a glance the vast
advantages that must accrue to whichever nation first effected so great a saving in that
most precious ingredient of all useful commodities, time, as would be gained by the
application of a discovery which trebled the speed, at the same time reducing the
money-cost, of the entire intercourse of the community.
Already are all the most populous districts in the United States intersected by lines of
railroads; whilst, amongst the number of unfinished, but fast advancing undertakings,
is a work, now half completed, for connecting Baltimore on the Chesapeake with the
Ohio river at Wheeling, a distance of more than two hundred and fifty miles.
Not content, however, with all that has been done, or is still doing, a scheme is at
present favourably agitated in the public press of that country, that shall connect
Washington city with New Orleans, by a series of railways, which, with those already
in progress between New York and Washington, will join the Atlantic at the mouth of
the Hudson and the Mexican Gulf; a project which, if completed, will enable a
traveller to visit New York from New Orleans in four daysa transition of scene that
may be better appreciated when it is remembered that a person might pass in winter
from the frozen banks of the Hudson into the midst of the orange and sugar regions of
the Mississippi in about ninety hours ! Other plans, of even a more gigantic character,
are marked out as in contemplation, upon the latest map published of the United
States ? plans that nothing but the prodigies already achieved by this people prevent
us from regarding as chimerical.
It demands not a moment's reflection to perceive the immense advantages that must
ensue from these improvements to a country which, like America, contains within
itself, though scattered over so wide a surface, all the elements of agricultural and
manufacturing greatness. By subjecting this vast territory to the dominion of steam,
such an approximation of the whole is attained, that the coals and iron of
Pennsylvania, the lead of Missouri, the cotton of Georgia, the sugar of Louisiana, and
the havens of New York and New England, will all be brought into available
connection with each other; in fact, by the almost miraculous power of this agent, the
entire American continent will, for all the purposes of commercial or social
intercourse, be compressed into an area not larger than that of England, supposing the
latter to possess only her canals.
Nothing more strongly illustrates the disadvantages under which an old country, like
Great Britain, labours in competing with her younger rival, than to glance at the
contrast in the progress of railroads in the two empires.
At the same time that, in the United States, almost every day beheld a new railway
company incorporated, by some one of the State's legislatures, at the cost only of a
few dollars, and nearly by acclamation, the British Parliament intercepted by its votes
some of the most important projects that followed in the train of the Liverpool
railroad.
The London and Birmingham company, after spending upwards of forty thousand
pounds, in attempting to obtain for its undertaking the sanction of the Legislature, was
unsuccessful in the House of Lords. The following characteristic questions are
extracted from the evidence taken before the committee :
Do you know the name of Lady Hastings' place?How near to it does your line
go?Taking the look-out of the principal rooms of the house, does it run in front of
the principal rooms?How far from the house is the point where it becomes
visible?That would be about a quarter of mile?Could the engines be heard in the
house at that distance?Is there any cutting or embankment there?Is it in sight of
the house?Looking to the country, is it not possible that the line could be taken at a
greater distance from the residence of Lady Hastings? * * * * * * *
Was that to pass through Lords Derby and Sefton's land?Yes, they both consented.
They threw us back the first year, and we lost such a line as we could never get again.
Since which they have consented to the other line going through their property. * * *
Supposing that line as easy for you as the present, was there any objection arising
from going through anybody's park?
The following question, put on the same occasion, by a peer to a shopkeeper, is one
that probably would not have been asked by any other person but a hereditary
legislator :
Can it be of any great importance whether the article goes there in five or six hours,
or in an hour and a half ?
The Brighton and several other railways were abandoned, through dread of the
expensive opposition that was threatened in parliament; amongst which the Great
Western line was successfully opposed by the landowners, seconded by the heads of
Eton College, under the plea that it would tend to impair the character of the scholars
! And a large party, headed by the Marquis of Chandos, actually met in public to
celebrate, with drinking and rejoicing, the frustration of this grand improvement. Yet
this nobleman has since had the offer of a voice in the cabinet council of the king :
and, but that he is as honest as he most assuredly is unenlightened and prejudiced, he
might now be one of the ministers of this commercial country !
But to recur to the consideration of affairs on the other side of the Atlantic. There is
another peculiarity in the present attitude of the American people, as compared with
our own, that is probably more calculated than all others to accelerate their progress
towards a superior rank of civilization and power. We allude to the universality of
education in that country. One thirty-sixth portion of all public lands, of which there
are hundreds of thousands of square miles unappropriated, is laid apart for the
purposes of instruction. If knowledge be power, and if education give knowledge,
then must the Americans inevitably become the most powerful people in the world.
Some writers have attempted to detract from this proud feature in the policy of the
United States, by adducing, as examples, the backwoodsman and his family, and
holding up their uncultivated minds, as well as their privation of Christian instruction,
as proofs of the religious and moral abandonment of American society; forgetting that
these frontier sections of the community are thinly spread over an inhospitable
wilderness, where it must be acknowledged that no State provision for mental
improvement could possibly embrace all their scattered members. When a man is
placed at the distance of perhaps ten miles from his next neighbour, he is driven, as
Dr. Johnson observes, to become his own carpenter, tailor, smith, and bricklayer; and
it is from no fault in the laws, but owing to the like unavoidable nature of things, that
the same solitary individual must also be left to act the part of teacher and pastor.
But, by referring to the last message of the Government of New York to the
legislature of that state, which happens to be before us, we are able to exhibit to our
readers, by a very brief quotation, the state of education in that most populous
division of the union.
In the whole range of your duties, says this most enlightened address, there is no
subject in which the interests of the people are more deeply involved, or which calls
for higher efforts of legislative wisdom, than the cause of education. The funds
already provided by the state for the support of common schools is large, but not so
ample as the exceedingly great importance of the object demands. After some other
details, it goes on to say Eight hundred and thirty-five towns and wards (the whole
number in the state) have made reports for the year 1833. There are nine thousand
eight hundred and sixty-five school districts; the whole number of children, between
the ages of five and sixteen years, in the state, was five hundred and thirty-four
thousand and two; and the number instructed in the common schools in 1833 was five
hundred and thirty-one thousand two hundred and forty. * * * The whole amount
expended during the year 1833, on the common schools, cannot fall short of one
million two hundred thousand dollars. ?
Bearing in mind that this refers only to one State of the Union, containing rather less
than two millions of inhabitants, could we imagine a more striking contrast to the
above statement than in the fact that, during the corresponding session of the British
Parliament, a sum of 20,000 was voted towards educating the people of England,
whilst, in close juxtaposition to this, was a grant of 60,000 for the purpose of partly
furnishing Buckingham palace !
The very genius of American legislation is opposed to ignorance in the people, as the
most deadly enemy of good government. Not only are direct measures, such as we
have just quoted in the case of New York, taken to instruct the poor throughout the
United Statesnot only are all newspapers and advertisements untaxedbut care is
used, by excepting from fiscal burdens the humblest ingredients of the materiel of
printingsuch as paper, rags, type, &c. to render knowledge as cheap and
accessible as possible.
The newspaper press forms a distinguishing and rapidly improving feature in the
economy of the United States. In 1834, according to the American Almanack for
1835, the aggregate of newspapers published under different titles in America was
1,265, of which ninety were daily journals; and the entire number of copies circulated
during the year is estimated at ninety millions. ?
In the British Islands three hundred and sixty-nine news-papers are published, of
which seventeen only issue daily. The annual sale of these is estimated at about
thirty millions.
If , therefore, we compare the newspaper press of America and England together,
allowing for the disproportion of inhabitants in the two countries, we shall be
compelled to acknowledge that there is more than six times as much advertising and
reading on the other side of the Atlantic as in Great Britain.
There are those who are fond of decrying newspaper reading. But we regard every
scheme that is calculated to make mankind think everything that, by detaching the
mind from the present moment, and leading it to reflect on the past or future, rescues
it from the dominion of mere sense as calculated to exalt us in the scale of being;
and whether it be a newspaper or a volume that serves this end, the instrument is
worthy of honour at the hands of enlightened philanthropists.
We know of nothing that would tend more to inform the people of England, and
especially of Ireland, than removing the excise fetters from our press. Independently
of the facilities to commerce, and the benefits which must ensue to temperance and
morals generally, a free press would, by co-operating with a good government (and
henceforth it is our own fault if we have a bad one), assist essentially the efforts of
those who desire to reduce the expenditure of the State, and help us to dispense with
that costly voucher of our ignorance, the standing army of this country.
We have thus hastily glanced at a few of the points of comparison to be found in the
prospects of Great Britain and America at this moment. To what shall we liken the
relative situations of these two great commercial and naval rivals? We will venture on
a simile.
Such of our readers as remember the London tradesman of thirty years ago, will be
able to call to mind the powdered wig and queue, the precise shoes and buckles, and
the unwrinkled silk hose and tight inexpressibles, that characterized the shopkeeper of
the old school. Whenever this stately personage walked abroad on matters of trade,
however pressing or important, he never forgot for a moment the dignified step of his
forefathers; whilst nothing gratified his self-complacency more than to take his gold-
headed cane in hand, and leaving his own shop all the while, to visit his poorer
neighbours, and to show his authority by inquiring into their affairs, settling their
disputes, and compelling them to be honest, and to manage their establishments
according to his plan. His business was conducted throughout upon the formal mode
of his ancestors. His clerks, shopmen, and porters all had their appointed costumes;
and their intercourse with their chief, or with each other, was disciplined according to
established laws of etiquette. Every one had his especial department of duty, and the
line of demarcation at the counter was marked out and observed with all the punctilio
of neighbouring but rival States. The shop of this trader of the old school retained all
the peculiarities and inconveniences of former generations; its windows displayed no
gaudy wares to lure the vulgar passer-by, and the panes of glass, inserted in ponderous
wooden frames, were exactly constructed after the ancestral pattern. Such were some
of the solemn peculiarities of the last generation of tradesmen.
The present age produced a new school of traders, whose first innovation was to cast
off the wig, and cashier the barber with his pomatum-box, by which step an hour was
gained in the daily toilet. Their next change was to discard the shoes and the tight
unmentionables whose complicated details of buckles and straps, and whose close
adjustment occupied another half-hour in favour of Wellingtons and pantaloons,
which were whipped on in a trice, and gave freedom, though perhaps at the expense
of dignity, to the personal movements during the day. Thus accoutred, these supple
dealers whisked or flew, just as the momentary calls of business became more or less
urgent; whilst so absorbed were they in their own interests that they scarcely knew the
names of their nearest neighbours, nor cared whether they lived peaceably or not, so
long as they did not come to break their windows.
Nor did the spirit of innovation end here; for the shops of this new race of dealers
underwent as great a metamorphosis as their owners. Whilst the internal economy of
these was reformed with a view to give the utmost facility to the labour of the
establishment, by dispensing with all forms, and tacitly agreeing even to suspend the
ordinary deferences due to station, lest their observance might, however slightly,
impede the business in hand externally the windows, which were constructed of
plate glass, with elegant frames extending from the ground to the ceiling, were made
to blaze with all the tempting finery of the day.
We all know the result that followed from this very unequal rivalry. One by one the
ancient and quiet followers of the habits of their ancestors yielded before the active
competition of their more alert neighbours. Some few of the less bigoted disciples of
the old school adopted the new-light system, but all who tried to stem the stream were
overwhelmed; for with grief we add, that the very last of these very interesting
specimens of olden time that survived, joining the two generations of London
tradesmen, and whose shop used to gladden the soul of every Tory pedestrian in Fleet
Street, with its unreformed windows, has at length disappeared, having lately passed
into the Gazette, that Schedule A of anti-reforming traders.
That which the shopkeeper of the present day is to him of the last age, such,
comparing great things with small, is the commercial position of America as
contrasted with that of Great Britain at the present moment. Our debt may be called
the inexpressibles or tights, which incessantly restrain us from keeping up with the
nimble pace of our pantalooned rivals. The square-toed shoes ? and the polished
buckles may be compared to the feudal laws and customs which, in competition with
Wellington-booted brother Jonathan, impede the march of improvement and the
enterprise of Englishmen. The powdered wig and queue we shall liken to our Church
Establishment, which, although very ornamental and imposing in appearance, does
yet engross a great share of the time and attention of our Parliament to adjust it
properly, all of which the legislature of our straight-haired competitor has been
enabled to apply to the encouragement of a more prosperous trade. The untaxed
newspaper of America, with their wide expanses of advertisements, contrasted with
the stamped sheets of this country, are the new and old-light windows of the two
generations of shop keepers. The quickened gait of the trader of to-day, and the
formal step of his predecessor, are the railways of the United States in competition
with our turnpikes and canals. And to complete the simile, if we would see in the
conduct of the two nations a resemblance to the contrast between the policy of the
dealer of the old school, who delighted to meddle in the concerns of his neighbours,
and that of the reformed tradesman, who rigidly confined his attention to the duties of
his own counterlet us picture England, interfering with and managing the business
of almost every State in Europe, Asia, and Africa, whilst America will form no
connection with any one of them, excepting as customers.
What! Shall we consign Old England, then, to ruin? Heaven forbid! Her people are
made of tough materials, and he would be but a dastardly politician that despaired of
them even yet. We say not, then, that this country will, like the antique establishment
of the individual trader, perish at the feet of its more youthful and active competitor;
but we fervently believe that our only chance of national prosperity lies in the timely
remodelling of our system, so as to put it as nearly as possible upon an equality with
the improved management of the Americans.
But let not be misconstrued. We do not advocate republican institutions for this
country. We believe the government of the United States to be at this moment the best
in the world; but then the Americans are the best ? people; and we have a theory that
the government of every State is always, excepting periods of actual change, that
which is the best adapted to the circumstances and wants of its inhabitants.
But they who argue in favour of a republic, in lieu of a mixed monarchy, for Great
Britain, are, we suspect, ignorant of the genius of their countrymen. Democracy forms
no element in the materials of English character. An Englishmen is, from his mother's
womb, an aristocrat. Whatever rank or birth, whatever fortune, trade, or profession
may be his fate, he is, or wishes or hopes to be, an aristocrat. The insatiable love of
caste that in England, as in Hindostan, devours all hearts, is confined to no walks of
society, but pervades every degree, from the highest to the lowest. ? Of what
conceivable use, then, would it be to strike down the lofty patricians that have
descended to us from the days of the Normans and Plantagenets, if we of the middle
classwho are more enslaved than any other to this passionare prepared to lift up,
from amongst ourselves, an aristocracy of mere wealthnot less austere, not less
selfishonly less noble than that we had deposed. No! whatever changes in the
course of time education may and will effect, we do not believe that England, at this
moment, contains even the germs of genuine republicanism.
We do not, then, advocate the adoption of democratic institutions for such a people.
But the examples held forth to us by the Americans, of strict economy, of peaceful
non-interference, of universal education, and of other public improvements, may, and,
indeed, must be emulated by the Government of this country, if the people are to be
allowed even the chance of surviving a competition with that republican community.
If it be objected, that an economical government is inconsistent with the maintenance
of the monarchical and aristocratic institutions of this land, then we answer, let an
unflinching economy and retrenchment be enforcedruat clum!
Of the many lessons of unsophisticated and practical wisdom which haveas if in
imitation of that arrangement of perpetual decay and reproduction that characterises
all things in material naturebeen sent back from the New World to instruct the Old,
there are none so calculated to benefit usbecause there are none so much
neededas those maxims of providence and frugality to which Franklin first gave
birth, and which, gaining authority and strength from the successive advocacy and
practice of Washington, Jefferson, and now of Jackson, have at length become
identified with the spirit of the laws and institutions of the United States.
An attempt has been made latterly by that class of our writers ? denominated
conservative, to deride this parsimony of the Franklin school as unworthy of the
American character. But we are, at this present moment, writhing beneath the
chastisement due to our violations of the homely proverbs of Poor Richard; and it is
only by returning within the sober limits of our means, and rigidly husbanding our
time and resources, and by renouncing all idle pomp and luxuryit is by these
methods only, and not by advocating still further outrages of the laws of prudence,
that this nation can be rescued from the all but irretrievable embarrassment into which
its own extravagance and folly have precipitated it.
The first, and, indeed, only certain step towards a diminution of our government
expenditure, must be the adoption of that line of foreign policy which the Americans
have clung to, with such wisdom and pertinacity, ever since they became a people.
If ever there was a territory that was marked out by the finger of God for the
possession of a distinct nation, that country is ours; whose boundary is the ocean, and
within whose ramparts are to be found, in abundance, all the mineral and vegetable
treasures requisite to make us a great commercial people. Discontented with these
blessings, and disdaining the natural limits of our empire, in the insolence of our
might, and without waiting for the assaults of envious enemies, we have sallied forth
in search of conquest or rapine, and carried bloodshed into every quarter of the globe.
The result proves, as it ever must, that we cannot violate the moral law with impunity.
Great Britain is conscious that she is now suffering the slow but severe punishment
inflicted at her own handsshe is crushed beneath a debt so enormous that nothing
but her own mighty strength could have raised the burden that is oppressing her.
Again we say (and let us be excused the repetition of this advice for we writer with no
other object but to enforce it), England cannot survive its financial embarrassment,
except by renouncing that policy of intervention with the affairs of other States which
has been the fruitful source of nearly all our wars.
We trust that this opinion will be generated throughout the population of this country,
and that the same spirit will be reflected, through its representatives in Parliament,
upon the Government.
In future, it will not be sufficient that no question concerning the State policy of other
nations is allowed to occupy the attention of our legislature, unless it be first shown
that our own honour or our interests are involved in its considerationit will not be
enough that our fleets and armies are not permitted to take a part in the contentions of
other nations; all this will not avail unless our diplomatists and foreign secretaries are
jealously restrained from taking a share, either by treaties or protocols, according to
the invariable wont of their predecessors, in the ever-varying squabbles of our
continental neighbours. By this course of policy, and by this alone, we shall be
enabled to reduce our army and navy moke nearly to a level with the corresponding
burdens of our American rivals.
May we be allowed, once more, to refute the objection which will be urged, that our
numerous fleets are necessary to the defence of our commerce? Then, we ask, does
any one deny that the persons of American merchants, or their vessels, are as safe in
every quarter of the world as our own? We have seen to how great a proportion of our
tonnage the American mercantile navy now amounts; we have seen how vast an
export trade they carry on; and we have seen with how small a Government force all
this is protected; may not an unanswerable argument, then, be found here, in fovour of
dispensing, henceforth, with a portion of our enormous naval and military
establishments?
Hitherto, whenever a war has at any time been threatened between two or more
European States, however remote or however insignificant, it has furnished a
sufficient pretence for our statesmen to augment our armaments by sea and by land, in
order to assume an imposing attitude, as it is termedforgetting, all the while, that by
maintaining a strict neutrality in these continental brawls, and by diligently pursuing
our peaceful industry, whilst our neighbours, were exhausting themselves in senseless
wars, we might be growing in riches, in proportion as they became poorer; and, since
it is by wealth after all that the world is governed, we should, in reality, be the less in
danger from the powers on the Continent, the more they indulged in hostilities with
each other.
It is a common error with our statesmen to estimate the strength of a nationas, for
instance, is the case at this moment, in their appreciation of the power of Russia,
Prussia, or Austriaaccording to the magnitude of its armies and navies; whereas
there are the signs, and, indeed, the causes, of real poverty and weakness in a people.
Our public debt is cancelled, said Mr. Benton, a speaker at the dinner lately held at
Washington to celebrate the extinction of the American debtour public debt is
cancelled; and there is more strength in those words than in one hundred ships of the
line ready for battle, or in a hundred thousand armed soldiers. And, to exemplify the
truth of this sentiment, we have subsequently beheld this very people, with only a few
schooners and frigates, and seven thousand troops, menacing the French Government,
steeped in debt, at the head of its million of fighting men, and its three hundred
vessels of war.
To remove, if possible for even the extravagant chimera that haunts the Government
and the people of this country, of our being in danger from any possible combination
of continental hostilities, let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that Russia were to
invade Turkeyor that France were again to cross the Rhine, having first seized upon
Holland and Belgium, and attack Prussia and Austriaor that the Spaniards should
seize upon Portugalor that the Austrian Government were to invade Naples or
Sardiniaor, if such a supposition be possible, let us imagine these powers to be
engaged in a battle-royal all together; now, does any sober and reasoning mind
believe that Great Britain, who, we will presume, had wisely availed herself of the
opportunities afforded by her insular position to remain neuter, would be selected by
any one of these powers, in addition to the enemies already opposed to it, for the
object of gratuitous attack? Does any rational person think that we should, under such
circumstances, be in greater jeopardy than the Americans from these contentions?
Having already demonstrated that even Napoleon, with Europe at his feet, was
powerless in his attacks upon our exports, we are afraid of being tedious in recurring
to that subject.
Were a war once more to break forth over the Continent of Europe, and were we to
stand aloof from the conflict, our commerce and manufactures, instead of receiving
injury in any quarter, would be thereby benefited; for, besides the well-known
facilities which a state of warfare would give to the smuggler for supplying those very
belligerents themselves with the products of our labour, it would, at the same time,
put an end to the competition which we now sustain, in other parts of the world, from
our manufacturing rivals of Europe. Germany, France, Switzerland, and Belgium,
and, indeed, almost every nation of the Continent, for whose independence and
existence we fought so long and arduously, have profited by the peace, to exclude our
fabrics from their markets, and, in mistaken policy, borrowed from our own restrictive
code, to raise up, at great sacrifices of national wealth, a manufacturing industry for
themselves.
Thus we find that, at this moment, Prussia is completing a wall of tariffs, which she
has been sedulously constructing for many years, and which will, more effectually
than did Napoleon, exclude us from the German marketPrussia, for whom we bled,
and for whose subsidies we are still taxed! Austria, another of our costly allies, whose
disasters our most renowned statesman ? would not outliveAustria has, ever since
the peace, sealed her territory against our merchandise. Naplesthat unworthy
protg, in behalf of whose court England's greatest hero sullied his otherwise
untarnished fameNaples repays us with an impost of cent. per cent. upon our
manufactures; whilst France has, since Napoleon's fall, been a less profitable
customer to England than she was during the time of his extremest enmity towards
this country.
True, at the close of the war, our ministers might have stipulated for, and might have
commanded a trade with all Europe, as some indemnity for our expenditure; but the
warriors and statesmen who represented us at Vienna, and who took pains to forward
such measures as the military occupation of France, or the erection of fortresses in
Belgium, or the binding us to become guarantee for the permanency of the union of
the Netherlands, forgot to utter one word about our merchants. It was unbecoming the
dignity of our gallant and noble plenipotentiaries to stipulate for the welfare of the
artisans and manufacturers of Great Britain. Compare this with the results of the
cheap diplomacy of the Americans.
Alas! by what numberless arts, neglects, and caprices (to say nothing of crimes) have
the interests of this industrious and greatly-favoured people been victimised!
Before closing this pamphlet, we will offer a few remarks as to the course which it
behoves Great Britain to pursue, for the future, upon an important question of
commercial policy.
With a view to enlarge, as much as possible, the capabilities of this people to support
the burden of debt and taxation with which they are destined to be permanently
loaded, every possible facility must be given to the increase of population, by the
expansion of our foreign trade, and which can only be accomplished by repealing the
protective duties on corn.
We shall be here met with the cry, that we are desirous of converting England into
one vast manufactory, that we advocate the interests of our order, and so forth. Far
from nourishing any such esprit de corps, our predilections lean altogether in an
opposite direction. We were born and bred up amidst the pastoral charms of the south
of England, and we confess to so much attachment to the pursuits of our forefathers
(always provided that it be separated from the rick-burnings and pauperism of modern
agriculture), that, had we the casting of the rle of all the actors on this world's stage,
we do not think we should suffer a cotton-mill or a manufactory to have a place in it;
not that they remind us of billyrollers, straps, and infant martyrdoms, for we
never saw such; but we think a system which draws children from home, where they
formerly worked in the company of parents, and under the wholesome restraint
incident to disparity of yearsnature's own moral safeguard of domestic lifeto
class them in factories, according to equality of age, to be productive of vice. But the
factory system, which sprang from the discoveries in machinery, has been adopted in
all the civilised nations of the world, and it is in vain for us to think of
discountenancing its application to the necessities of this country; it only remains for
us to mitigate, as far as possible, the evils that are, perhaps, not inseparably connected
with this novel social element.
The present corn laws are founded on the principle of limiting, as far as possible, the
growth of the population of Britain, within the means of the soil to supply it with
subsistence. No candid advocate of a protective duty will deny that it must have this
tendency; nor will he dispute that, to restrict the import of corn into a manufacturing
nation, is to strike at the life of its foreign commerce.
It is objected by the landowners of England that, if the duty on grain were to be
reduced, it would operate unfavourably upon their interests, and they claim a
protection at the hands of the rest of society. Now, without entering at all into the
question of the right which belongs to such pretensions, we shall content ourselves
with taking our stand upon the simple ground of necessity, and declare that the people
of this country are in an emergency that precludes the possibility of their ministering
to the selfishness of any one class in the community.
The interest of the public debt cannot be paid except by the co-operation of our
foreign commerce; and this cannot be preserved permanently, unless the price of that
first element of the cost of our manufactures, food, be the same here as with our
competitors abroad. We are surprised that the question has not before been placed in
this point of view by the advocates of a free trade in corn, since it withdraws the
subject altogether from that invidious position which it has hitherto held betwixt the
rival contentions of agriculture and commerce, and places it under the control of
inexorable State necessity.
We have been amazed (if anything could astonish us from this unintelligent party) to
find that the national debt is one of the leading arguments made use of by the
economists of the Sadler school, in advocating a restrictive duty on corn. A brief
appeal to a very few simple facts will, we believe, not only deprive them of this
argument, but, in the opinion of all unprejudiced minds, place it on the opposite side
of the question.
Our public debt, funded and unfunded, amounts to about eight hundred millions. Let
this sum be more fully appreciated, by bearing in mind that it exceeds the aggregate of
all the debts of the whole world, including that of the East India company, amounting
to one hundred and fifty millions. Here, then, we have the British Empire, with only
its twenty-five millions of populationpossessing a territory of only ninety thousand
square geographical miles, and containing only forty-five millions of acres of
cultivated land (about two-thirds of the area of France), supporting an annual burden
for the interest of the national debt, equal to the taxation borne, for the same purpose,
by all other States. How, then, can a country, of so confined a boundary, and with no
greater population than we have named, find it possible to endure so great a
disproportion of taxation? If it be asked, how does France meet her public expenses,
we can answer, by pointing to the superabundant production of wine, oil, silk,
tobacco, fruit, and corn, yielded throughout an expanse of territory so wide as to
ensure an almost perpetual harvest to its people. If we inquire, how does Russia
maintain here government burdensthe surplus timber, corn, hemp, and tallow of
that country must be the reply. Would we know by the resources Italy, Spain, and
America discharge their respective national encumbrancesthe excess of the produce
of silk, oil, fruits, cotton, and tobacco, over and above the wants of the population of
those countries, solves the mystery.
But we demand to know by what means Great Britain can sustain an annual burden,
for interest of debt, exceeding that of these and all other States together. Is it out of
the surplus production of its corn? Her soil has not, for the last forty years, yielded
sufficient to supply the necessities of her population. It this enormous demand
satisfied by the yearly excess of her wines, silk, oil, fruits), cotton, or tobacco? The
sterile land and inhospitable climate of Britain are incapable of producing any one of
these. Where, then, lies the secret of her wealth? Is it in her colonies? How, if we are
prepared to prove that these are at this moment, and, in future, are still more destined
to become, a severe burden to the people of these realms?
Our mineral riches are the means by which alone we have been enabled to incur this
debt, and by whose agency only can we at this moment discharge the interest of it.
To satisfy ourselves of this, let us examine the year's return of our revenue, and we
shall there discover nearly twenty millions of income under the head of customs
duties. How are the commodities, on which this amount of taxation is levied, obtained
from foreigners? Are they received in exchange for our agricultural produce? By
looking over the list of articles exported, we shall, on the contrary, find that out of
thirty-six millions of home products not one million is the unmixed growth of the soil.
These commodities are purchased by our cottons, woollens, ? hardware, and the other
articles produced by the manufacturers of this country; the growth, to use the term, of
the coal and iron of Great Britainwhich are, we repeat, the primary sources of all
her wealth and power, and the want of which alone prevents other nations of Europe
from rivalling her in manufacturing greatness. Of course it is known that our
agricultural labour supplies a great portion of the food of our weavers and other
artizans, and, therefore, mixes with the results of their industry; but when it is
recollected that the cost of food here is from fifty to one hundred and fifty per cent.
dearer than in other States, it will be admitted that it is not owing to the cheap price at
which the farmer supplies the corn of the manufacturer that the latter is enabled to
undersell his foreign competitors.
To come to the point with those who advocate a restrictive policy on our foreign
trade, by a protection, as it is called, of our agriculture, we ask, in what way do they
propose ever to pay off the national debt, or permanently to discharge the interest of
it, out of the indigenous wealth of these islands?
The whole area of cultivated land in this monarchy is, as we have before stated,
estimated at about forty-five millions of acres: at twenty pounds per acre, the fee
simple of the soil of these islands (we, of course, leave out the houses, &c.) would
very little exceed the amount of our debt. There is an end, therefore, of the idea of
discharging the principal out of the real property of the country; and by what means
would they who obstruct a foreign commerce profess to pay the interest of the debt
without the assistance of that trade? Supposing that our exports were diminished, and
that, owing to the consequent falling off in our imports, our customs were sensibly
reduced, from what articles of our agricultural produce would these advocates of a
Japanese policy raise the deficient revenue? In France (where the prohibitive system,
which has long reigned supremely, is drawing fast to a dismal end) the customs duties
amount to about one-fifth of our own, and the great bulk of the revenue is levied from
the land. But provided that a reduction of our foreign trade rendered such a step
necessary, we ask again and it is an important question, involving the whole gist of
our argument), upon what branch of British agriculture could an augmented impost be
levied? May not the recent almost fanatical outcry against the malt tax, the only
burden of any magnitude borne directly by the land in this country, serve as a
sufficient answer to the inquiry?
The question of the repeal of the corn laws, then, resolves itself into one of absolute
state necessity; since our foreign trade, which is indispensable to the payment of the
interest of the national debt, cannot be permanently preserved if we persevere in a
restrictive duty against the principal article of exchange of rude, unmanufacturing
people. To prohibit the import of corn, such as is actually the case at this moment, is
to strangle infant commerce in its cradle; may, worse, it is to destroy it even in its
month's womb.
We recommend the landowners, but especially the great proprietors who constitute
the upper house of legislature, to reflect upon this view of the corn laws.
But we have remarked an inclination in a part of the landed interest to slightto use
the mildest possible termthe public creditor; a feeling that shone forth in the motion
of the Marquis of Chandos to remove the malt taxthus aiming at the insolvency of
the Chancellor of the Exchequerwithout caring first to inquire by what fresh
imposts he should meet the engagements of his country. These unreflecting minds are,
we apprehend, quite incapable of estimating the consequences that will ensue if ever
we should be found unable to meet the interest of the debtin other words, if the
British nation should be declared bankrupt! Let us for one moment contemplate the
results that would follow from such an event.
We find, from a statement in Porter's Official Tables, that there are 250,000 persons
receiving dividends, of and under the amount of 200 a year. Presuming the families
or dependents of them to average ? two each, then we shall have here half a million of
individuals looking to the public funds for support. Moreover, we find the total
amount of the deposits in all the savings' banks of the kingdom to be 13,500,000;
and the number of depositors, according to the same authority, is 412,217, averaging
33 each; taking the families or dependents of these at the same average as before,
and it gives three-quarters of a million more. Then there is an immense amount of the
public debt owing to charities,including insurance offices, benefit clubs, schools,
&c., involving the interests of an incalculable multitude of necessitous persons.
Guessing these to amount to only the same total as the last mentioned (for it is
impossible to form a correct estimate on the subject), then we arrive at an aggregate of
two millions of the middle and lower classes, who are, directly or indirectly, claimants
on the national debt.
Now, no one capable of thinking upon such a subject at all will for a moment believe
that, if we were driven to such an extremity as to rob these two millionscomprising
so many of the labourers, the small traders, the orphans and widowsof their
subsistence, that the pomp of the court or the wealth of the clergy, or the privileges of
our nobles, would be more secure than the bread of these humble annuitants.
No rational mind can suppose that lords in waiting, grooms of the stole, gold sticks
and silver sticks, would be maintainedthat bishops and prebends would still be
found in undisturbed possession of their stalls and revenuesor that the peers would
retain their law of primogeniture, or the right of hereditary legislation, whilst
desolation and misery overspread the land with horrors at terrible as any it could
undergo from the ravages of half-a-million of Cossacks.
The cleverest of our journalists has saidand the words have passed into a
proverbBefore you rob the public creditor, send your throne to the pawn-shop.
And nothing can be more certain than that the national debt (which ought never to
have been incurred, and the authors of which some future generation will probably
deem to have been madmen) must be borne by the people of England, entire and
untouched, so long as they can stand beneath its burden. If ever the day should come
that sees this mighty fabric crush the nation to the dust, it will bury in its ruins the
monarchy, Church, and aristocracy, with every vestige of our feudal institutions, and
every ancestral precedentleaving the state, like Mr. Courtenay's sheet of blank
paper, upon which the then existing generation will have the task of inscribing a new
constitution, borrowed from the freest and most flourishing community of that day,
and which, in all probability, will be found on the continent of America.
From such a catastrophe there is no escape but in either honestly paying off the
principal of the public debt, or in continuing to discharge the interest of it for ever.
The ravings after an equitable adjustment, and other like expedients, are but the
impracticable schemes of those who would wish to precipitate such a calamity as we
have been describing.
If ever house in England were converted into a Court of Chancery, and if all the men
between twenty and sixty were constituted Lord Chancellors, there would not then be
a sufficient quantity of equity courts and equity judges to effect such an equitable
adjustment of the national debt as is meant, during the life-time of an entire
generation.
The national debt, then, is inviolable; and this recalls us to the inquiry of how it is to
be permanently supported; which brings us again to the question of the corn laws.
The only way in which we can lighten the pressure of the debt is by adding to the
population and wealth of the country. The agricultural districts have, we suspectso
far as the middle classes are concernedalready experienced that dull state incident
to the stationary period of society; whilst, under the present amended poor laws, we
believe that the farther increase of the pauper population will be effectually checked.
The sole way, then, of adding to our numbers, is to give the freest possible
development to the only present superabundant contents of the soilthe mineral
products of Great Britain.
By repealing the present corn laws, and putting only a fixed duty of such an amount
as would bring the greatest revenue (we object no more to a tax on corn than on tea or
sugar, for the purpose of revenue, ? but we oppose a protective duty, as it is called),
which, probably, might be found to be two shillings a quarter, such an impulse would
be given to the manufactures of this country, whilst so great a shock would be
experienced by our rivals, from the augmented price of food all over the world, that a
rapid growth of wealth and increase of numbers must take place throughout the coal
and iron districts of England, Wales, and Scotland.
The population of Staffordshire, Lancashire, Yorkshire, Lanarkshire, and of counties
adjacent to these, might be trebled in the course of a couple of generations; and there
would be no limit to its increase but in the contents of our coal mines, to which
geologists assign a duration varying from two to three thousand years!
It will be asked, what would be the effects of such a change upon the agriculture of
the country? The best way of replying to this question is to consider what must have
been the consequence to all interests in this country if, in lieu of the restrictions put
upon the import of corn in 1816, a law had been passed, imposing only such a
moderate duty as would ultimately produce the greatest revenue, and which, in our
opinion, would be found to be two shillings a quarter. The factory system would in all
probability not have taken place in America or Germany;it most certainly could not
have flourished, as it has done, both in those states, and in France, Belgium, and
Switzerland, through the fostering bounties which the high-priced food of the British
artisan has offered of the cheaper fed manufacturer of those countries.
Our belief, after some reflection upon this question, is (having already very far
exceeded the intended limits of this pamphlet, we are precluded from going into
details), that, had a wise modification of our corn laws been effected at the close of
the war, the official value of our exports would have exceeded by one-third its present
amount. This is, of course, presuming that our manufacturing population had
augmented proportionately;we believe that, under such circumstances, the before-
mentioned counties would have now sustained upwards of a million more than their
present numbers; but, as the increase of their inhabitants would not have been equal to
the demand for labour, a great immigration must have taken place from the
agricultural districts. This would have saved those quarters that frightful ordeal of
pauperism and crime with which they have disgraced our modern history. The farmer
would, by the offer of other resources for his family and dependents, have been saved
from the state of servility into which he is plunged. Instead of the rent of the tenants
being dictated by the landlords, the former would, under this more favourable state of
things, have been the arbiters of the incomes of the latter. In short, the buyersi.e.,
the farmerswould, in this case, as the purchasers do in dealing with all other
commodities, have decided the prices of their farmsthey would not have been as at
present, determined by the sellers, i.e., the landowners.
Under such an assumed state of things, this country would, we believe, by this time
have acquired an increase to its present wealth to the extent of 350 ? millionsnearly
one-half the amount of the national debt.
The immediate effects of all this to the landed proprietor would clearly have been a
reduction of rent; or where the property was heavily encumbered, his estates would
have passed into other hands.
We should not, in such a case, have heard of those displays of wanton extravagance
that tend so much to demoralise all classes. Instead of the exhibitions of prodigality
and insolence abroad, with which some of those proprietors affronted the nations of
the continent, and disgraced at the same time their native countryinstead of their
contribution at home to raise and support a palace for Crockfordinstead of their
dispensing with all decorum, and herding with grooms and black-legs at Newmarket
or Doncasterinstead of the necessary consequences of all this, the subsequent ruin
and exile of such wastrels in place of these things, we might have beheld a
provident and virtuous proprietary residing principally upon and managing their
estates; and who, we verily believe, would, under this supposed state of things, have
become richer in wealth, as well as honour, than they are at this day.
But selfishness, which is ever short-sighted, has hitherto governed supremely the
destinies of this empire; and we have seen how disastrous has been its rule, not only
to its own interests, but to the prosperity of the nation at large. Should the same
misgovernment from no better motives be persevered in with respect to the corn
question, the effects will be still more calamitous for the future. The public debt, that
eternal ally of truth and justice (to use the words of a famous political writer, without
adopting his malignancy), will visit with terrible reprisals the monopolists who shall
persist in upholding the present corn laws.
We cannot do better than conclude with the words of an intelligent American, as they
were addressed to an English traveller. The extract is taken from the preface to
Ferguson's Tour in Canada and a portion of the United States.
Even with your present burden of debt, if your Government were to renounce all
interference with the affairs of the continent, and keep no more force, land or naval,
than is necessary for your own security, have no more wars, and diminish the
expenditure as much as possible, you will grow so rapidly in the next fifty years that
your debt would cease to be of any importance. I earnestly hope that the passage of
the Reform Bill may be only the prelude to an entire change of system; and that your
successors may feel, as we do here, that wars do not promote the prosperity of a
nation, and have the good sense to avoid them.
RUSSIA.
1836.
ADVERTISEMENT.
This is not a party pamphlet. Nor will Russia be found, as the title might seem to
imply, to be exclusively the subject of inquiry in the following pages. If, as has lately
been shown in England, at certain periods in the history of a nation, it becomes
necessary to review its principles of domestic policy, for the purpose of adapting the
government to the changing and improving condition of its peopleit must be
equally the part of a wise community to alter the maxims by which its foreign
relations have, in past times, been regulated, in conformity with the changes that have
taken place over the entire globe.
Can the States' System which was applicable to the international affairs of Europe a
century ago, be suited to the circumstances of to-day ?or, on the contrary, do not
those portentous events which have intervened in the rise and paramount
commercial importance of free America, the downfall of the colony system, and the
application of the doctrines of free tradedemand reforms of proportionate
magnitude in the foreign policy of Great Britain? These important changes have, in
the latter part of this pamphlet, for the first time, been taken into consideration with
reference to the question of Turkey; and, without presuming, for a moment, to claim
for our mode of treating this important subject the slightest attention, we may be
allowed to add, that the mighty influence which such changes are now exercising over
our destinies ought to be duly studied and appreciated by those who, as statesmen, are
permitted to regulate the external affairs of this commercial empire.
NOTE.
This pamphlet, which was published in the year 1836, was suggested by the alarm of
a Russian invasion, which prevailed in that year, and which led to an increase in our
navy of five thousand men. Although the views of what is now known as the Eastern
Question, which Mr. Cobden has embodied in the following pages, correspond with
those to which he and his distinguished friend, Mr. Bright, gave such forcible and
eloquent expression during the war with Russia, it is scarcely too much to say, that
political students generally will peruse the pamphlet with as much zest as if it were
now for the first time issued from the press; and, indeed, the arguments and
illustrations by which Mr. Cobden sought to controvert the popular apprehension of
Russian power and ambition which then existed, have a close bearing upon more
recent phases of pubic opinion. But at the time Mr. Cobden wrote he had to contend
with traditional illusions, which not only inspired large classes of the community with
an alarm as mischievous as it was vague and unreal, but formed a no unimportant part
of the political creed of statesmen.
The reader can judge of the manner in which Mr. Cobden acquitted himself of his
arduous task; but an authentic anecdote will best illustrate the effect which the perusal
of his work produced on the minds of public men, who, from the eminent position
they occupied thirty years ago, were best qualified to form a critical opinion on its
merits. Shortly after the publication of the pamphlet Lord Durham, who was then the
English ambassador at St. Petersburg, received a copy of it in his official bag. He read
it and was so much impressed with the clearness and force of its leading ideas, that he
at once wrote to his friend, the late lamented Mr. Joseph Parkes, and requested him to
discover the name of the author. Mr. Parkes obtained Mr. Cobden's permission to
mention his name; and when, two years later, his Lordship returned to England, he
desired Mr. Parkes to bring about a meeting between himself and Mr. Cobden. The
result was that Mr. Cobden dined with Lord Durham, who, after an evening of
friendly conversation, was still more struck with his new acquaintance. His
subsequent prophetic and sagacious remark to Mr. Parkes deserves to be recorded.
Mark my words, he said, Cobden will one day be one of the first men in England.
It only remains to add that Mr. Cobden made a tour through Turkey and the East in
the year following the publication of his brochure, but that he did not visit Russia until
the year 1846, when the abolition of the corn laws enabled him at once to recruit his
health, and to disseminate free trade principles in other countries, by a few months of
continental travel.
RUSSIA.
CHAPTER I
Russia, Turkey, And England.
It has been somewhere remarked, that, in former times some false alarms usually
preceded or accompanied a new war. Thus, in 1792, Mr. Saunderson, then Lord
Mayor, and soon afterwards made a Baronet, got up in his place in the House of
Commons, and declared that he knew of a plot to surprise the Tower of London; all
England was thrown into a fear of the Jacobins, and the anti-Jacobin war soon
followed; but of the conspiracy to seize the Tower not another word was heard.
Again, at the close of the short peace, or, more properly speaking, the truce of
Amiens, it was alleged, in all the public prints, and subsequently inserted in the
declaration of war, that Bonaparte had armies ready to invade England; and, in proof,
it was adduced that instructions had been given to the French diplomatic and
commercial agents to take surveys and soundings of our coasts and harbours.? The
people, thus deluded into an anti-Bonaparte war, forgot that many different surveys of
every part of our coast, and of every harbour in the British dominions, might have
been purchased for a few shillings at every hydrographer's or chart-seller's; and that
no foreigner, by years of study, could have added an iota to the information contained
in the various pilot-books then used in the different channels. We live in other times;
but still the constitution of our Government, which gives to the Court the power of
declaring war, and to the Commons the privilege of providing for its expenses,
remains the same; and, however we may be verging upon a more secure era, we
confess we think there is sufficient ground in the predominant influence which an
aristocracy, essentially warlike, exercises at this moment in the Ministry, to warn our
readers and the public against the passion for a foolish war, with which the minds of
the people have been latterly very industriously inflamed. We do not charge the noble
Lords who form the great majority in the Cabinet with a design to stimulate the
country to demand hostilities with Russia; the policy of the Ministry may probably
have stopped far short of that, and aimed only at accomplishing an augmentation of
the army or navy. Certain it is, however, that one active mind? has, during the last two
years, materially influenced the tone of several of the newspapers of this kingdom, in
reference to the affairs of Russia and Turkey, and incessantly roused public opinion,
through every accessible channel of the periodical press, against the former and in
favour of the latter nations; certain it is, moreover, that this individual, if not
previously an agent of the Government, has latterly become so, by being appointed to
a diplomatic post in our embassy at Constantinople. How far this indefatigable spirit
has been successful in his design, to diffuse a feeling of terror and a spirit of hatred
towards Russia in the public mind, may be ascertained by any one who will take the
trouble to sound the opinions of his next neighbour upon the subject, whom, it is ten
to one, he will find an alarmist about the subtlety of pozzo di Borgo, the cruelty of the
Czar, and the barbarism of the Russians. He most likely will find him to possess but
vague feelings of apprehension, and very little exactness of knowledge upon the
subject; he will not know, perhaps, precisely, whether the province of Moldavia be on
the right or the left bank of the Danube, or whether the Balkan and the ancient Hmus
be an identical range of mountains; he will have but an indistinct acquaintance with
the geography of Asia Minor, and probably confound the Bosphorus with the
Dardanelles; but still he shall be profoundly alarmed at the encroachments of Russia
in those quarters, and quite willing to go to war to prevent them. Such, we gravely
assert, is the feeling, and such are the opinions of the great majority of those who take
their doctrines from some of the newspapers at this moment, upon the question of
Russian aggrandisement. Believing that the fate of Turkey, and the designs of her
great northern neighbour, are by no means matters that affect the interests of England
so vitally as some writers imagine, we are yet more directly opposed to them, by
entertaining a conviction that, even if the worst of their forebodings were to arriveif
even Russia were to subjugate TurkeyEngland would gain rather than suffer by the
event. In order to state our views fairly upon this interesting and difficult question, it
will be necessary for us to glance, hastily, at the past history and the present
condition, as respects the government and resources, of the two empires; and then,
having assumed that Turkey had fallen a prey to the ambition of Russia, we will
weigh the probable consequences of, and meet the possible objections to, such an
event.
But, before entering upon our task, we would disavow all intention of advocating the
cause of Russian violence and aggression. It can only be necessary to say thus much
at the outset of this pamphlet in order to prevent the reader from anticipating our
design with an undue prepossession respecting our motives; for the whole spirit and
purpose of the following pages will show that we are hostile to the Government of St.
Petersburg, and to every principle of its foreign and domestic policy. Our sympathies
flow, altogether, towards those free institutions which are favourable to the peace,
wealth, education, and happiness of mankind.
In comparing the Turkish Government with that of Russia, however, it will be found
that the latter is immeasurably the superior in its laws and institutions; and if, in the
remarks which we shall have occasion to make, we should appear to bestow
commendations upon that northern people, we entreat that the reader will consider us
to be only speaking in comparison with its more barbarous and despotic Mahometan
neighbour, and not from any abstract predilection in favour of the Russian nation.
Again, whilst we argue that we should, in all probability, benefit by the subjugation of
Turkey by Russia, we do not attempt to justify, or even to palliate, the forcible
spoliation of its territory; still less do we advocate the intervention of the English
Government, for the purpose of promoting such a conquest. Our sole object is to
persuade the public that the wisest policy for England is, to take no part in those
remote quarrels. To accomplish this end we will endeavour to examine every distinct
source of danger which the advocates for our interference in the affairs of states a
thousand miles distant, adduce as arguments in defence of their policy. We shall claim
the right of putting the question entirely upon a footing of self-interest. We do not, for
a moment, imagine that it is necessary for us to show that we are not called upon to
preserve the peace and good order of the entire world. Indeed, those writers and
speakers who argue in favour of our intervention in the affairs of Russia and Turkey,
invariably do so upon the pretence that our commerce, our colonies, or our national
existence, are endangered by the encroachments of the former empire. We trust the
futility of such fears will be shown by the following appeal to reason, experience, and
facts.
The Turks, a race of the Tartars of Asia, conquered Constantinople in 1453. In the
succeeding century, this people struck terror into all Europe by their conquests. They
subdued Egypt, the Barbary States, and all the Arabian coasts on the Red Sea. In
Europe, they conquered the Crimea and the countries along the Danube; they overran
Hungary and Transylvania, and repeatedly laid siege to Vienna. At sea,
notwithstanding the gallant resistance of the Venetians, they subdued Rhodes, Cyprus,
and all the Greek islands. Down to our own time, the Turks governed a territory so
vast and fertile that, in ancient ages, it comprised Egypt, Phnicia, Syria, Greece,
Carthage, Thrace, Pontus, Bithynia, Cappadocia, Epirus, and Armenia, besides other
less renowned empires. From three of these states went forth, at various epochs,
conquerors who vanquished and subjected the then entire known world. The present
lamentable condition of this fine territory, so renowned in former time, arises from no
change in the seasons or defalcation of nature. It still stretches from 34 to 48 degs.
north, within the temperate zone, and upon the same parallels of latitude as Spain,
France, and all the best portion of the United States. Mount Hmus. Says Malte-
Brun, is still covered with verdant forests; the plains of Thrace, Macedonia, and
Thessaly yield abundant and easy harvests to the husbandman; a thousand ports and a
thousand gulfs are observed on the coasts, peninsulas, and islands. The calm billows
of these tranquil seas still bathe the base of mountains covered with vines and olive
trees. But the populous and numerous towns mentioned by ancient writers have been
changed into deserts beneath a despotic government. All the authorities upon this
country assure us that the soil of many parts of Turkey is more fruitful than the richest
plains of Sicily. When grazed by the rudest plough, it yields a more abundant harvest
than the finest fields between the Eure and the Loire, the granary of France. Mines of
silver, copper, and iron are still existing, and salt abounds in the country. Cotton,
tobacco, and silk might be made the staple exports of this region, and their culture
admits of almost unlimited extension throughout the Turkish territory; whilst some of
the native wines are equal to those of Burgundy. Almost every species of tree
flourishes in European Turkey. The heights of the Danube are clad with apple, pine,
cherry, and apricot trees; whole forests of these may be seen in Wallachia; and they
cover the hills of Thrace, Macedonia, and Epirus. The olive, orange, mastic, fig,
pomegranatethe laurel, myrtle, and nearly all the beautiful and aromatic shrubs and
plantsare natural ;to the soil. Nor are the animal productions less valuable than
those of vegetable life. The finest horses have been drawn from this quarter to
improve the breeds of Western Europe; and the rich pastures of European Turkey are
probably the best adapted in the world for rearing the largest growths of cattle and
sheep.
That, in a region so highly favoured, the population should have retrograded, whilst
surrounded by abundance; that its wealth and industry should have been annihilated;
and that commerce should be banished from those rivers and harbours the first called
it into existencemust be accounted for by remembering that the finest soil, the most
genial climate, or the brightest intellectual and physical gifts of human nature are as
nothing when subjected to the benumbing influences of the Government of
Constantinople. It is necessary to refer to the religion and the maxims of its
professors, which constitute all that serves as a substitute for law with this
Mahometan people, if we would know the causes why ignorance, barbarism, and
poverty now overspread the fairest lands of Asia and Europe. The Turks profess, as is
well known, the most bigoted and intolerant branch of the Mahometan faith; they
regard with equal detestation the Persian Shiite and the follower of Christ; nay, the
more zealous amongst their doctors contend that it is as meritorious to slay one Shiite
as twenty Christians. Their colleges, or madresses, teach nothing but the Mahometan
theology; many years being spent in mastering such knotty points as, whether the feet
should be washed at rising or only rubbed with the dry hand. As the orthodox Turk,
of whatever rank, is taught to despise all other fields of learning than the Koran, under
the belief that Mahomet has, in that sacred book, recorded all that his faithful
followers are required to knowit follows, of course, that he is religiously ignorant
of all that forms the education of a Frenchman, German, or Italian; he knows nothing
of the countries beyond the bounds of the sultan's dominions. The Turks (unlike the
liberal Persians, who have made some advances in science) are unacquainted with the
uses of the commonest scientific instruments, which are exhibited to them by
travellers just as we do to amuse children. Notwithstanding that this people have been
for nearly four centuries in absolute possession of all the noblest remains of ancient
art, they have evinced no taste for architecture or sculpture, whilst painting and music
are equally unknown to them. Nor have they been less careless about the preservation
of ancient, than the creation of modern, works of labour and ingenuity. They found, at
the conquest of the Eastern Empire, splendid and substantial public and private
edifices, which have been barbarously destroyed, or allowed to crumble beneath the
hand of time; and huts of wood, compared by travellers to large boxes? standing in
rows with their lids open upon hinges, compose the streets of modern Constantinople,
and other large cities. Bridges, aqueducts, and harbours, the precious and durable
donations of remote yet more enlightened generations, have all suffered a like fate;
and the roads, even in the vicinity of the capital, which in former ages maintained an
unrivalled celebrity, are describe, by the last tourist, to be now in so broken and
neglected a state as to present a barrier against the progress of artillery as complete as
though it had been designed by an engineer for that purpose.
The cause of all this decay is ascribed to the genius of the Turkish Governmenta
fierce, unmitigated, military despotismallied with the fanaticism of a brutalising
religion, which teaches its followers to rely on the sword, and to disdain all
improvement and labour. The Sultan, who is the vicegerent of the prophet, holds both
temporal and spiritual authority over his followers; and this enables him to sway the
lives and destinies of the people with an absoluteness greater than was ever enjoyed
by any tyrant of ancient times; unchecked, too, by the growth of cities, the increase of
knowledge, or the accumulation of wealthall which are alike incompatible with the
present government of the country. Every man who is invested with absolute power is
at liberty to delegate his power unimpaired to another; the Sultan is the vicegerent of
the prophet; every Pasha is a representative of the Sultan; and every soldier who
carries an order the representative of the Pasha. The situations of Pasha and Cadi, or
judge, are all given to the highest bidders, who are removable at will, and, of course,
take care to indemnify themselves at the expense of the governed. It is a fact of
public notoriety, says Thornton,? that governments of every description are openly
sold at the Porte; they are held for the term of one year only, and, at the ensuing
bairam, the leases must be renewed or transferred to a less parsimonious competitor.
In the public registers, the precise value of every important post under government is
recorded; and the regular remittance of the taxes and tribute is the only acknowledged
criterion of upright administration. It is a fundamental principle that all the property
conquered by the Turks belongs to the Sultan. Hence the Christians are accounted the
slaves of the conqueror, and they are only allowed to live by paying a heavy tribute,
the receipt for which bears that it is the ransom of their heads !
Probably, in nothing has this people been more unduly represented than in the praises
which have been bestowed on their unrestricted principles of trade. The Turk knows
nothing, and cares as little about freedom of commerce; he disdains trade himself, and
despises it in others; and, if he has failed to imitate more civilised (though, certainly,
in this point of view, not wiser) nations, by fortifying his coasts with custom-houses,
it is certainly from no wise principle of taxation, but simply because such a circuitous
method of fiscal exaction would be far too complicated and wearisome for the minds
of Ottoman governors, who prefer the simpler mode of raising a revenue by the direct
extortion of the Pasha or the Aga. Far from favouring the extension of commerce, one
great cause of the present barbarism and the past unhappy condition of Turkey is to be
found in the aversion and contempt which its people bear for trade. The Jews, says
Hadji-khalfa, the Turkish writer, in speaking of Salonica, employ many workmen in
their different manufactoriessupport a number of schools in which there are not
fewer than two hundred masters. The caravans that travel from Salonica to Semlin,
Vienna, and Leipsig, are loaded with cotton, tobacco, carpets, and leather. It is a
shame, continues the orthodox Hadji-khalfa, that so many Jews are allowed to
remain in Salonica; the excitement thus given to trade is apt to blind true believers.
The fate of those vast and rich tracts bordering upon the Black Sea and its tributary
rivers affords ample proof that the genius of Mahometanism is inimical to the
interests of commerce and agriculture. The trade carried on by the ancients upon the
shores of the Euxine was very considerable, and gave life and wealth to several
populous cities mentioned in history. In more modern times the Genoese formed
establishments upon the coasts of the Black Sea, and they took the lead in navigating
those waters down to the fifteenth century. At the taking of Constantinople, the Turks
closed the Black Sea against the ships of Europe; and from that time its navigation
was lost to the commerce of the world for a period of more than three centuries.
By the treaty of Kanardgi, in1774, the ships of Russia were allowed to pass the
Bosphorus; other countries soon afterwards obtained similar privileges; some
restrictions, which it was still attempted to keep up, were removed by the treaty
between the Russians and Turks in 1829; and the Black Sea is now, for commercial
purposes, as open as the Mediterranean. The importance of this vast extension of
commercial navigation cannot, at present, be fully appreciated, owing to the
unfortunate condition of the population which inhabits those regions. Some idea may,
however, be formed of the extent and probable importance of those great rivers which
fall into the Black Sea, by the following estimate furnished by Malte-Brun :
If all the rivers in Europe be as . . . 1.000
Those which flow into the Black Sea . . 0.273
Those which flow into the Mediterranean. . 0.144
Of all the features belonging to the Turkish national character, there is none less
favourable than that which relates to the neglect and contempt with which that people
has invariably treated affairs of trade. Whether it be owing to that dogma of their
creed which forbids the receiving interest for money, or to that other familiar text of
the Koran, which says, There is but one law, and that forbids all communication with
infidels; certain it is that such an example as a Turkish merchant transacting matters
of commerce with a foreign trader was scarcely ever known in that country. This is an
anomaly the more striking, when we refer to other countries, less advantageously
situated, as, for instance, China, where trade has acquired an importance, and is
conducted on a system the growth of ages of good government, and of a like period of
patient industry in the people. Nothing but a tyrannical despotism, at once sanguinary
and lawless, could have had the effect of repelling commerce from the superb harbour
of Constantinople; but, alas! the thousand ships which might find secure anchorage
there would seek in vain for the rich freights of silk, cotton, and wool which ought to
await their coming: such is the character of its people and rulers, that no native
capitalists have ever been emboldened to accumulate a store of merchandise to tempt
the rapacity of the Sultan; and vessels which trade to Constantinople have frequently
occasion to go to Salonica, Smyrna, or some other port for return cargoes.
Before we turn away from this hasty and assuredly not very pleasing glance at the
Ottoman nation, it would be uncandid if we omitted to notice the imputed virtues of
Turks; foremost amongst which stands charitya quality enjoined to all true
believers by the words of Mahomet, and which includes within its operation the
inferior animals. They are reputed to be honourable in their dealings, and faithful to
their wordscharacteristics of the haughty masters, as lying and chicane are natural
to the slave. The Turks are forbidden the use of wine: but then they console
themselves by substituting the eternal coffee, tobacco, and opium, and by other
sensual indulgences.
We turn, in the words of a great writer, from the soil of barbarism and the crescent,
to a country whose inhabitants participate in the blessings of Christianity and
European civilisation.
Russia comprises one-half of Europe, one-third of Asia, and a portion of America;
and includes within its bounds nearly sixty millions, or a sixteenth portion of the
human race. Its territory stretches in length from the Black Sea to the confines of
Upper Canada; and from the border of China to the Arctic Sea in width. The
stupendous size of the Russian Empire has excited the wonder and alarm of timid
writers, who forget that it is an identity of language, habits and character, and not the
soil or the name of a master, which constitutes a great and powerful nation. Ruling
over eighty different nations or tribes, the autocrat of all the Russias claims the
allegiance of people of every variety of race, tongue, and religion. Were it possible to
transport to one common center of his empire the gay opera lounger of St. Petersburg,
habited in the Parisian mode; the fierce Bashkir of the Ural Mountain, clad in rude
armour, and armed with bow and arrows; the Crimean, with his camel, from the
southern steppes; and the Esquimaux, who traverses with his dogs the frozen regions
of the norththese fellow-subjects of one potentate would encounter each other with
all the surprise and ignorance of individuals meeting from England, China, Peru, and
New Holland; nor would the time or expense incurred in the journey be greater in the
latter than the former interview. It must be obvious to every reflecting mind that vast
deductions must be made from the written and statistical resources of a nation
possessing no unison of religious or political feeling, when put in competition with
other empires, identified in faith, language, and national characteristics. The popular
mind has been, however, greatly misled by many writers on the Russian Empire, who
have sought to impress their readers with the idea of the over whelming size of its
territory, and who have at the same time willfully or negligently omitted to mention
other facts, which, if taken in connection, serve to render that very magnitude of
surface a source of weakness rather than power. We are furnished by Malte-Brun with
some tables of the relative densities of the population of the European empires, which
will help to illustrate our views upon this subject, and from which we give an
extract:
Inhabitants.
Russia, for each square league . . . . 181
Prussia . . . . . . . . 792
France . . . . . . . . 1063
England . . . . . . . . 1457
Now the same law applies to communities as to physicsin proportion as you
condense you strengthen, and as you draw out you weaken bodies; and, according to
this rule, the above table, which makes Prussia more than four times as closely
peopled as Russia, would, bearing in mind the advantages of her denser population,
give to the former power an equality of might with her unwieldy neighbour, which we
have no doubt it quite consistent with the truth; whilst the same tabular test if applied
to Russia, France, and England, would assign much the greater share of power to the
two latter nations; which experience has demonstrated to be the fact. Here, then, we
have the means of exemplifying by a very simple appeal to figures (ever the best
reasoning weapons) how the vastness of territory of the Russians is the cause of
debility rather then of strength. It would be a trite illustration of a self-evident truism
if we were to adduce as a proof of our argument the practice in military tactics. What
general ever dreamed of scattering his troops by way of increasing their power?
Bonaparte grained his terrible battles by manuvring great masses of men in smaller
limits than any preceding commanders.
But the same geographer supplies us with a graduated scale of the relative taxation of
these countries, which affords a yet more convincing proof of the disadvantageous
position of Russia.
Russia, each inhabitant contributes to Government . . . . . . 0118
Prussia . . . . . . . 0 176
France . . . . . . . 1 8 4
England . . . . . . . 3 134
Now, assuming, as we may safely do, that these governments draw the utmost
possible revenue from their subjects, what a disproportion here is between the wealth
of the closely peopled Britain and the poverty of the scantily populated Russia! We
find, too, that the gradation of wealth is in the direct proportion to the density of the
inhabitants of the four countries. Here, then, we have a double source of weakness for
Russia, which would operate in a duplicate ratio to her disadvantage, in case that
nation were plunged into war with either of those other states; for, whilst her armies
must necessarily be mustered from greater distances at proportionate cost, and with
less ability on her part to bear those charges, her rivals would possess troops more
compactly positioned, and, at the same time, the greater means of transporting
them:in a word, the one party would require the funds, and not possess them, whilst
the other would comparatively speaking have the money and not want it. A necessary
evil attends the wide-spread character of the population of Russia, in the absence of
those large towns which serve as centres of intelligence and nurses of civilisation in
other countries. Thus, in those vast regions, we have the cities of
St. Petersburg, with a population of . . 305,000
Moscow . . . . . . . 190,000
Warsaw . . . . . . . 117,000
Kasan . . . . . . . . 50,000
Kiew . . . . . . . . 40,000
whilst we find the remainder of the large places on the map of Russia to be only in
size upon a par with the third-rate towns of England. That in a country of such vast
extent, and comprising sixty millions of people, and where so few populous cities
exist, the great mass of the inhabitants are living in poverty, ignorance, and barbarism,
scarcely rising above a state of nature, must be apparent. Tribes of Cossacks and of
Tartars, wandering over the low countries of Caucasia, own a formal allegiance to
Russia. Other hordes, dignified by the alarmist writers on the subject of Russian
greatness with the title of nationssuch as the Circassians, the Georgians, the
Mingrelians, with more than thirty other tribes, some Christian, others Mahometan, or
of a mixed creed, occupying the mountainous regions of the Caucasusare wholly or
partially subdued to the dominion of the Czar. These fierce tribes are addicted to all
the rude habits of savages; they live by the chase, or the cultivation of a little millet;
they commit barbarous outrages, and buy and sell each other for slavesoften
disposing of their own children, brothers, and sisters to the Turks. Against these
refractory and half-subdued neighbours the Russians are compelled to keep fortresses
along the frontier.
If we pass to Northern Russia, we find the Samoiedes, a people enduring nearly six
months of perpetual night, and enjoying, in requital, a day of two months; with them,
corn is sown, ripened, and reaped in sixty days. In the governments of Wologoda,
Archangel, and Olonetz (for even in this almost uninhabitable region man has
established his ministerial arrangements and political divisions), the climate is of such
a nature that human industry can hardly contend against the elements, and the scanty
product of his labour enables the husbandman scarcely to protract a painful and
sometimes precarious existence. Trees disappear on the sterile plainsthe plants are
stuntedcorn withersthe marshy meadows are covered with rushes and
mossesand the whole of vegetable nature proclaims the vicinity of the Pole.
Over these desolate wastes, a traveller might journey five hundred miles, and not
encounter one solitary human habitation. The government or province of Orenburg is
larger than the entire kingdom of Prussia, and yet contains only a population of one
millions souls!
There are, however, vast districtsas, for example, the whole of Little Russia, and
the Ukraineof fertile territory, equal in richness to any part of Europe; and it has
been estimated that Russia contains more than 750,000 square miles of land, of a
quality not inferior to the best portions of Germany, and upon which a population of
two hundred millions of people might find subsistence. Here, then, is the field upon
which the energies of the government and the industry of its subjects should be, for
the next century, exclusively devoted; and if the best interests of Russia were
understoodor if its government would attain to that actual power which ignorant
writers proclaim for it in the possession of boundless wastes and impenetrable
forestsshe should cease the wars of the sword, and begin the battle with the
wilderness, by constructing railroads, building bridges, deepening rivers; by fostering
the accumulation of capital, the growth of cities, and the increase of civilisation and
freedom. These are the only sources of power and wealth in an age of improvement;
and until Russia, like America, draws from her plains, mountains, and rivers those
resources which can be developed only by patient labourvain are her boasts of
geographical extent. As well might the inhabitants of the United States vaunt of their
unexplored possessions west of the Rocky Mountains, or England plume herself upon
the desert tracts if New Holland.
If such be the true interests of Russia, it will be admitted, then, that the conquest of
those extensive and almost depopulated regions now withering under the government
of the Sultan would only be a wider departure from this enlightened policy. Assuming
that such a conquest had taken place, it follows that the population of the Russian
empire would become still more diversified in character and of a yet more
heterogeneous nature; whilst it, at the same time, would diffuse itself over a far wider
surface of territory; and, if the arguments which we have offered are founded in
reason, then the first effects of all this must be, that Russia would, herself, be
weakened by this still greater distension of her dominion. What, then, becomes of our
apprehensions about the safety of India, or the possession of the Ionian Islandsthe
freedom of the Mediterraneanour maritime supremcyor the thousand other
dangers with which we are threatened as the immediate consequence of the possession
of Constantinople by the Russians?
If we would from a fair estimate of the probable results of that event, we ought to
glance, for a moment, at the conduct of the same people under somewhat similar
circumstances in another quarter. The policy pursued by Russia on the Gulf of Finland
(where St. Petersburg arose, like an exhalation from the marshes of the Neva), when
those districts were wrested, by its founder, from the maniac Charles XII., would, we
have a right to assume, be imitated by the same nation on the shores of the Bosphorus.
Let us here pause to do homage to that noblest example of history, far surpassing the
exploits of Alexander or Napoleonthat sublime act of devotion at the shrine of
commerce and civilisation, offered by Peter the Great, who, to instruct his subjects in
the science of navigation and the art of shipbuilding, voluntarily descended from a
throne, where he was surrounded by the pomp and splendour of a great potentate, and
became a menial workman in the dockyards of Saardam and Deptford! We vindicate
not his crimes or his vicesthe common attributes of the condition of society in
which he lived; his cruelty was but the natural fruit of irresponsible power in savage
life; and his acts of grossness and intemperance were regarded by the nation as
honourable exploits, but the genius that enabled him to penetrate the thick clouds of
prejudice and ignorance which enveloped his people, and to perceive, afar off, the
power which civilisation and commerce confer upon nations, was the offspring of his
own unaided spirit, and will ever be worthy of peculiar honour at the hands of the
historian. Everybody knows under what trying disadvantages this metropolis, planted
in the midst of unhealthy and barren marshes, and in a latitude that, by the ancients,
was placed beyond the limits of civilisation, sprung from the hands of its founder, and
stood forth the most wonderful phenomenon of the 18th century. At present, this
capital, which contains upwards of 300,000 inhabitants, and is termed, from the
splendour of its public buildings, a city of palaces, can boast of scientific bodies
which are in correspondence with all the learned societies of Europe. The government
has sent out circumnavigators, who have made discoveries in remote regions of the
globe. St. Petersburg contains museums of art and literature; some of the first
specimens of sculpture and painting are to be seen in its public halls; its public
libraries contain twice as many volumes as those of London; and the best collection of
Chinese, Japanese, and Mongol books are to be found on their shelves. All the
decencies and even elegancies of life, observable in Paris or London, are found to
prevail over this northern metropolis; and there is nothing in the streets (unless it be
the costume of the people, necessary to meet the exigencies of the climate) to remind
the eye of the traveller that he is not in one of the more western Christian capitals.
We may fairly assume that, were Russia to seize upon the capital of Turkey, the
consequences would not at least be less favourable to humanity and civilisation than
those which succeeded to her conquests on the Gulf of Finland a century ago. The
seraglio of the Sultan would be once more converted into the palace of a Christian
monarch; the lasciviousness of the harem would disappear at the presence of his
Christian empress; those walls which now resound only to the voice of the eunuch and
the slave, and witness nothing but deeds of guilt and dishonour, would then echo the
footsteps of travellers and the voices of men of learning, or behold the assemblage of
highsouled and beautiful women, of exalted birth and rare accomplishments, the
virtuous companions of ambassadors, tourists, and merchants from all the capitals of
Europe. We may fairly and reasonably assume that such consequences would follow
to conquest of Constantinople; and can any one doubt that, if the government of St.
Petersburg were transferred to the shores of the Bosphorus, a splendid and substantial
European city would, in less than twenty years, spring up in the place of those huts
which now constitute the capital of Turkey?that noble public buildings would arise,
learned societies flourish, and the arts prosper?that from its natural beauties and
advantages, Constantinople would become an attractive resort for civilised
Europeans?that the Christian religion, operating instantly upon the laws and
institutions of the country, would ameliorate the condition of its people?that the
slave market, which is now polluting the Ottoman capital centuries after the odious
traffic has been banished from the soil of Christian Europe, would be
abolished?that the demoralising and unnatural law of polygamy, under which the
fairest portion of the creation becomes an object of brutal lust and an article of daily
traffic, would be discountenanced?and that the plague, no longer fostered by the
filth and indolence of the people, would cease to ravage countries placed in the
healthiest latitudes and blessed with the finest climate in the world? Can any rational
mind doubt that these changes would follow from the occupation of Constantinople
by Russia, every one of which, so far as the difference in the cases permitted, has
already been realised more than a century in St. Petersburg? But the interests of
England, it is alleged, would be endangered by such changes. We deny that the
progress of improvement and the advance of civilisation can be inimical to the
welfare of Great Britain. To assert that we, a commercial and manufacturing people,
have an interest in retaining the fairest regions in Europe in barbarism and
ignorancethat we are benefited because poverty, slavery, polygamy, and the plague
abound in Turkeyis a fallacy too gross even for refutation.
One of the greatest dangers apprehended (for we set out with promising to answer the
popular objections to the aggrandisement of Russia in this quarter) is, from the injury
which would be inflicted upon our trade; which trade, exclusively of that portion of
our nominal exports to Turkey, which really goes to Persia, does not much exceed
half a million yearly, an amount so contemptible when we recollect the population,
magnitude, and natural fertility of that empire, that it might safely be predicted, under
no possible form of government could it be diminished, But Russia is said, by the
panegyrists of Turkey, to be an anti-commercial country. We have already seen that to
Russian influence we are indebted for the liberation of the Black Sea from the
thraldom in which it had been held by Turkish jealousy for three hundred years. If,
however, we would judge of the probable conduct of that people after the conquest of
Constantinople, we must appeal to the experience which they have given us of their
commercial policy at St. Petersburg. The first Dutch Merchant vessel (whose captain
was welcomed with honours and loaded with presents by Peter the Great) entered that
harbour in 1703; and at the present time fifteen hundred vessels clear out annually
from the capital of Russia for all parts of the world. The internal navigation of this
vast empire has been improved with a patience and perseverance, in the last century,
which, bearing in mind the impediments of climate and soil, are deserving our
astonishment and admiration, and which contrasts strangely with the supineness of
that Mahometan people whose habits are, according to some writers, so favourable to
trade, but in whose country not one furlong of canal or navigable stream, the labour of
Turkish hands, has been produced in upwards of three hundred years! Three great
lines of navigation, one of them 1,400 miles long, extend through Russia, by which
the waters of the Baltic, the Caspian, and the Black Sea are brought into connection;
and by which channels the provinces of the Volga, the plains of the Ukraine, and the
forests and mines of Siberia, transmit their products to the markets of Moscow and St.
Petersburg.? Much as may with truth be alleged against the lust for aggrandisement
with which Russian counsels have been actuated, yet if we examine, we shall find that
it is by the love of improvementthe security given by laws to life and
propertybut, above all, owing to the encouragement afforded to commercethat
this empire has, more than by conquest, been brought forth from her frozen regions, to
hold a first rank among the nations of Europe.
The laws for the encouragement of trade are direct and important; and their tendency
is to destroy the privileges of the nobles, by raising up a middle class precisely in the
same way by which our own Plantagenets countervailed the powers of the barons.
Every Russian carrying on trade must be a burgher, and a registered member of a
guild or company; and of these guilds there are three ranks, according to the capitals
of the members:
10 to 50,000 roubles? entiles to foreign commerce, exempts from corporal
punishment, and qualifies to drive about in a carriage and pair.
5 to 10,000 roubles, the members of this guild are confined to inland trade.
1 to 5,000 roubles includes petty shopkeepers.
Besides these guilds for merchants, the porters of the large towns associate together in
bodies, called artels, resembling, in some respects, the company of wine coopers in
London, for the purpose of guaranteeing persons employing one of them from any
loss or damage to his goods. Now, in a country, however far removed from a state of
freedom and civilisation (and we maintain that, in these respects, the condition of
Russia is in arrear of all other Christian states), where laws such as these exist, for
encouraging industry, conferring privileges upon trades, and doing honour to the
accumulation of capitalin that country prodigious strides have been already taken
on the only true path to enlightenment and liberty. On this path the Turks have
disdained to advance a single step. Here we have at one glance the distinctive
characters of the Turkish and Russian, the Sclavonic and Mongolian racesthe
former unchanging and stationary, the latter progressive and imitative. The very
stringent laws which Russia has passed against the importation of our fabrics, are
indications of the same variety of character; evincing a desire to rival us in
mechanical industry: while the apathy with which the Turk sees every article of our
manufactures enter his ports, without being stimulated to study the construction of a
loom or spinning frame, is but another manifestation of his inferior structure of
intellect.
To return, then, to the oft agitated question, as to the danger of our commerce
consequent upon the conquest of Constantinople by Russiaare we not justified in
assuming that our exports to Turkey would exceed half-a-million per annum, if that
fertile region were possessed by a nation governed under laws for the fostering of
trade, such as we have just described? Some persons argue, indeed, that although the
productive industry of those countries would augment under such supposed
circumstances, still, so great is the enmity of the Russians towards England, that we
should be excluded from all participation in its increase. But how stands the case if we
appeal to the policy of that people, as already experienced, and find
thatnotwithstanding that our own tariff at this time interposes a duty of 100 per
cent. against the two staple articles of Russian produce, timber and cornthe amount
of trade carried on between Great Britain and St. Petersburg is equal to that of the
latter with all the rest of the world together; for of the 1,500 vessels clearing annually
from that port, 750 are British? But it is contended that, if Russia were put into
possession of the Turkish provinces, she would possess, within her own limits, such a
command of all the natural products as might enable her to close the Hellespont
against the world, and begin a Japanese system of commercial policy. To this we
reply, that commerce cannot, in the present day, turn hermit. It will not answer for a
people to try, in the words of Sheridan, to get an atmosphere and a sun of its own.
Nay, better stillno country can carry on great financial transactions except through
the medium of England. We are told by Mr. Rothschild, in his evidence before the
legislature, that London is the metropolis of the moneyed world; that no large
commercial operations can possibly be carried on, but they must be, more or less,
under the influence of this common centre of the financial system, round which the
less affluent states, like the humbler orbs of the solar creation, revolve, and from
whence they must be content to borrow lustre ad nourishment. Supposing, indeed, that
Russia were in possession of Turkey, and should commence a system of non-
intercourse (we are under the necessity of making these whimsical suppositions in
order to reply to grounds of argument which are actually advanced every day by grave
writers upon this question), could she carry on those extensive manufactures which
some people predict, without deriving a supply of raw ingredients from other
countries? It will suffice on this head if we observe, that to enable any one of our
manufacturers to conduct the simplest branch of his mechanical and chemical
industry, it is requisite that he be duly supplied with materials, the growth of every
corner of the globe;the commonest printed calico, worn by the poorest peasant's
wife, is the united product of the four quarters of the earth; the cotton of America, the
indigo of Asia, the gum of Africa, and the madder of Europe, must all be brought
from those remote regions, and be made to combine with fifty other as apparently
heterogeneous commodities, by ingenious arts and processes, the results of ten
thousand philosophical experimentsand all to produce a rustic's gownpiece! Whilst
such are the exigencies of manufacturing industry, binding us in abject dependence
upon all the countries of the earth, may we not hope that freedom of commerce, and
an exemption from warfare, will be the inevitable fruits of the future growth of that
mechanical and chemical improvement, the germ of which has only been planted in
our day? Need we add one word to prove that Russia could notunless she were to
discover another chemistry, which should wholly alter the properties of matterat the
same time seclude herself from the trade of the rest of the world, and become a rich
and great manufacturing or commercial nation? Wherever a country is found to favour
foreign commerce, whether it be the United States, Russia, Holland, China, or Brazil
(we speak only of commercial nations, and, of course, do not include France), it may
infallibly be assumed, that England partakes more largely of the advantages of that
traffic than any other state; and the same rule will continue to apply to the increase of
the commerce of the world, in whatever quarter it may be, so long as the British
people are distinguished by their industry, energy, and ingenuity; and provided that
their rulers shall keep pace in wise reforms and severe economy with the governments
of their rivals. It follows, then, that, with reference to trade, there can be no ground of
apprehension from Russia. If that people were to attempt to exclude all foreign traffic,
they would enter at once upon the high road to barbarism, from which career there is
no danger threatened to rich and civilised nations; if, on the other hand, that state
continued to pursue a system favourable to foreign trade, then England would be
found at Constantinople, as she has already been at St. Petersburg, reaping the greatest
harvest of riches and power, from the augmentation of Russian imports.
By far the greater proportion of the writers and speakers upon the subject of the power
of Russia either do not understand, or lose sight of the all-important question, What is
the true source of national a greatness? The path by which alone modern empires can
hope to rise to supreme power and grandeur (would that we could impress this
sentiment upon the mind of every statesman in Europe!) is that of labour and
improvement. They who, pointing to the chart of Russia, shudder at her expanse of
impenetrable forests, her wastes of eternal snow, her howling wildernesses, frowning
mountains, and solitary rivers; or they who stand aghast at her boundless extent of
fertile but uncultivated steppes, her millions of serfs, and her towns the abodes of
poverty and filthknow nothing of the true origin, in modern and future times, of
national power and greatness. This question admits of an appropriate illustration, by
putting the names of a couple of heroes of Russian aggression and violence in contrast
with two of their contemporaries, the champions of improvement in England. At the
very period when Potemkin and Suwarrow were engaged in effecting their important
Russian conquests in Poland and the Crimea, and whilst those monsters of carnage
were filling the world with the lustre of their fame, and lighting up one-half of Europe
with the conflagrations of wartwo obscure individuals, the one an optician and the
other a barber, both equally disregarded by the chroniclers of the day, were quietly
gaining victories in the realms of science, which have produced a more abundant
harvest of wealth and power to their native country than has been acquired by all the
wars of Russia during the last two centuries. Those illustrious commanders in the war
of improvement, Watt and Arkwright, with a band of subalternsthe thousand
ingenious and practical discoverers who have followed in their trainhave, with their
armies of artisans, conferred a power and consequence upon England, springing from
successive triumphs in the physical sciences and the mechanical arts, and wholly
independent of territorial increasecompared with which all that she owes to the
evanescent exploits of her warrior heroes sinks into insignificance and obscurity. If
we look into futurity, and speculate upon the probable career of one of these
inventions, may we not with safety predict that the steam-enginethe perfecting of
which belongs to our own age, and which even now is exerting an influence in the
four quarters of the globewill at no distant day produce moral and physical changes,
all over the world, of a magnitude and permanency, surpassing the effects of all the
wars and conquests which have convulsed mankind since the beginning of time!
England owes to the peaceful exploits of Watt and Arkwright, and not to the deeds of
Nelson and Wellington, her commerce, which now extends to every corner of the
earth, and which casts into comparative obscurity, by the grandeur and extent of its
operations, the peddling ventures of Tyre, Carthage, and Venice, confined within the
limits of an inland sea.
If we were to trace, step by step, the opposite careers of aggrandisement, to which we
can only thus hastily glanceof England, pursuing the march of improvement within
the area of four of her counties, by exploring the recesses of her mines, by
constructing canals, docks, and railroads, by her mechanical inventions, and by the
patience and ingenuity of her manufacturers in adapting their fabrics to meet the
varying wants and tastes of every habitable latitude of the earth's surfaceand of
Russia, adhering to her policy of territorial conquests, by despoiling of provinces, the
empires of Turkey, Persia, and Sweden, by subjugating in unwilling bondage the
natives of Georgia and Circassia, and by seizing with robber hand the soil of
Polandif we were to trace these opposite careers of aggrandisement, what should
we find to be the relative consequences to these two empires? England, with her
steam-engine and spinning frame, has erected the standard of improvement, around
which every nation of the world has already prepared to rally; she has, by the magic
of her machinery, united for ever two remote hemispheres in the bonds of peace, by
placing Europe and America in absolute and inextricable dependence on each other;
England's industrious classes, through the energy of their commercial enterprise, are
at this moment influencing the civilisation of the whole world, by stimulating the
labour, exciting the curiosity, and promoting the taste for refinement of barbarous
communities, and, above all, by acquiring and teaching to surrounding nations the
beneficent attachment to peace. Such are the moral effects of improvement in Britain,
against which Russia can oppose comparatively little but the example of violence, to
which humanity points as a beacon to warn society from evil. And if we refer to the
physical effects, iffor the sake of convincing minds which do not recognise the far
more potent moral influenceswe descend to a comparison of mere brute forces, we
find still greater superiority resulting from ingenuity and labour. The manufacturing
districts aloneeven the four counties of England, comprising Lancashire, Yorkshire,
Cheshire, and Staffordshirecould, at any moment, by means of the wealth drawn,
by the skill and industry of its population, from the natural resources of this
comparative speck of territory, combat with success the whole Russian empire!
Liverpool and Hull, with their navies, and Manchester, Leeds, and Birmingham, with
their capitals, could blockade, within the waters of Cronstadt, the entire Russian
marine, and annihilate the commerce of St. Petersburg. And, further, if we suppose
that, during the next thirty years, Russia, adhering to her system of territorial
aggrandisement, were to swallow up, successively, her neighbours, Persia and
Turkeywhilst England, which we have imagined to comprise only the area of four
counties, still persevered in her present career of mechanical ingenuity, the relative
forces would, at the end of that time, yet be more greatly in favour of the peaceful and
industrious empire. This mere speck on the oceanwithout colonies, which are but
the costly appendage? of an aristocratic governmentwithout wars, which have ever
been but another aristocratic mode of plundering and oppressing commercewould,
with only a few hundred square leagues of surface, by means of the wealth which, by
her arts and industry, she had accumulated, be the arbitress of the destiny of Russia,
with its millions of square miles of territory. Liverpool and Hull, with their thousands
of vessels, would be in a condition to dictate laws to the possessor of one-fourth part
of the surface of the globe; they would then be enabled to blockade Russia in the Sea
of Marmora, as they could now do in the Gulf of Finlandto deny her the freedom of
the seasto deprive her proud nobles of every foreign commodity and luxury, and
degrade them, amidst their thousands of serfs, to the barbarous state of their ancestors
of the ancient Rousniacsand to confine her Czar in his splendid prison of
Constantinople!? If such are the miracles of the mind, such the superiority of
improvement over the efforts of brute force and violence, is not the writer of these
pages justified in calling the attention of his countrymen elsewhere, to the progress
of another people, whose rapid adoption of the discoveries of the age, whose
mechanical skill and unrivalled industry in all the arts of lifeas exemplified in their
thousands of miles of railroads, their hundreds of steamboats, their ship-building,
manufacturing, patent inventionswhose system of universal instruction, and, above
all, whose inveterate attachment to peaceall proclaim America, by her competition
in improvements, to be destined to affect more vitally than Russia, by her
aggrandisement of territory, the future interests of Great Britain?
If, then, England, by promoting the peaceful industry of her population, is pursuing a
course which shall conduct her to a far higher point of moral and physical power than
Russia can hope to reach by the opposite career of war and conquest, we must seek
for some other motive than that of danger to ourselves, for the hostilities in which we
are urged by so many writers and speakers, to engage with that northern people.
The great grievance, indeed, with us, is one which, of all things born in remembrance,
displays quite as much navet in the character of the British people as is consistent
with a moderate share of self-knowledge. The Russians are accused by us of being an
aggrandising people! From the day of Pultowa down to the time of the passage eof the
Balkansay the orators, journalists, reviewers, and authorsthe government of St.
Petersburg has been incessantly addicted to picking and stealing. But, in the
meantime, has England been idle? If, during the last century Russia has plundered
Sweden, Poland, Turkey, and Persia, until she has grown unwieldy with the extent of
her spoils, Great Britain has, in the same period, robbedno, that would be an
unpolite phrasehas enlarged the bounds of his Majesty's dominions at the
expense of France, Holland, and Spain. It would be false logic and just as unsound
morality to allow the Muscovite to justify his derelictions of honesty by an appeal to
our example; but surely we, who are staggering under the embarrassing weight of our
colonies, with one foot upon the rock of Gibraltar and the other at the Cape of Good
Hopewith Canada, Australia, and the peninsula of India, forming, Cerberus-like,
the heads of our monstrous empireand with the hundred minor acquisitions
scattered so widely over the earth's surface so as to present an unanswerable proof of
our wholesome appetite for boundless dominionsurely we are not exactly the nation
to preach homilies to other people in favour of the national observance of the eighth
commandment!? If we find all these possessions to be burdensome rather than
profitableif, in common with all marauders, we discover by experience that the
acquisitions of fraud or violence confer nothing but disappointment and losswe
shall not improve our case by going to war to prevent Russia pursuing the same
course, which will inevitably conduct her to a similar fate, where the same retribution,
which will ever accompany an infringement of the moral laws, awaits her. England
and Russia, in the act of scolding each other on the reciprocal accusation of unjust
aggrandisement, present an appearance so ludicrous that it forcibly recalls to our
recollection the quarrel between the two worthies of the Beggars' Opera, the
termination of which scene we recommend to the imitation of the diplomatists of the
two Courts. Like Lockit and Peachum, the British lion and the Russian bear, instead
or tearing one another, had better hug and be friendsBrother bruin, brother bruin,
we are both in the wrong.
Lord Dudley Stuart (whose zeal, we fear, without knowledge, upon the subject of
Poland, and whose prejudice against Russia have led him to occupy so much of the
public time uselessly upon the question before us), in the course of his long speech in
the House of Commons (February 19th) upon introducing the subject of Russian
encroachments, dwelt at considerable length upon the lust of aggrandisement by
which he argued that the government of St. Petersburg was so peculiarly
distinguished; and he brought forward, at considerable cost of labour, details of its
successive conquests of territory during the last century. Where the human mind is
swayed by any passion of however amiable a nature, or where the feelings are
allowed to predominate over the reason, in investigating a subject which appeals only
to the understanding, it will generally happen that the judgment is defective. We
attribute to the well-known fervour of Lord Stuart's sentiments upon Russia and
Poland, the circumstance that, during the fortnight which he must have employed in
collecting the dates of the several treaties by which the former empire has wrested its
possessions from neighbouring states, the thought never once occurred to hima
reflection which would have entered the head of almost any other man of sense, who
sat down coolly to consider the subjectthat, during the last hundred years, England
has, for every square league of territory annexed to Russia, by force, violence, or
fraud, appropriated to herself three. Such would have been the reflection which
flashed across the mind of a statesman who sat down, dispassionately, to investigate
the subject of Russian policy; and it must have prevented him by the consciousness of
the egotism and arrogancenay, the downright effrontery? of such a coursefrom
bringing an accusation against another people which recoils with threefold
criminality upon ourselves. Nor, if we were to enter upon a comparison of the cases,
should we find that the means whereby Great Britain has augmented her possessions,
are a whit less reprehensible than those which have been resorted to by the northern
power for a similar purpose. If the English writer calls down indignation upon the
conquerors of the Ukraine, Finland, and the Crimea, may not Russian historians
conjure up equally painful reminiscences upon the subjects of Gibraltar, the Cape, and
Hindostan? Every one conversant with the history of the last century will remember
that England has, during almost all that period, maintained an ascendancy at sea; and
colonies, which were in times past regarded as the chief source of our wealth and
power, being pretty generally the fruits of every succeeding war, the nation fell into a
passion for conquest, under the delusive impression that those distant dependencies
were, in spite of the debt contracted in seizing them, profitable acquisitions to the
mother country. Hence the British Government was always eager for hostilities the
moment an excuse presented itself with one of the maritime continental states
possessing colonies; and of the several conflicts in which we have been involved
since the peace of Ryswick, at least three out of four have been consequent upon
declarations of war made by England.? Russia, on the contrary, has been nearly
surrounded by the territory of barbarous nations, one of which? by the very nature
of its institutions warlike and aggressivewas, up to the middle of the last century,
prompted by a consciousness of strength, and, since then, by a haughty ignorance of
its degeneracy, to court hostilities with its neighbours; and the consequence of this
and other causes is, that, in the majority of cases, where Russia has been engaged in
conflicts with her neighbours, she will be found to have had a war of self-defence for
her justification. If such are the factsif England has, for the sake of the spoil which
would accrue to her superiority of naval strength, provoked war, with all its horrors,
from weak and unwilling enemies, whilst Russia, on the contrary, with ill-defined
boundaries, has been called upon to repel the attacks of fierce and lawless
nationssurely, we must admit, unless pitiably blind by national vanity, that the gain
(if such there be) resulting from these contentions, is not less unholy in the former
than the latter case; and that the title by which the sovereign of St. Petersburg holds
his conquered possessions is just as good, at least, as that by which the government of
St. James's asserts the right to ours. In the case of Poland, to which we shall again
have to recur by and by, there was, indeed, a better title than that of the sword, but
which, amidst the clamour of fine sentiments, palmed by philanthropic authors and
speakers upon the much abused public mind about Russian aggression in that quarter,
has never, we believe, been mentioned by any orator, reviewer, or newspaper writer
of the present day. The Republic of Poland (we quote the words of Malte-Brun)
had been chiefly composed of provinces wrested from Russia, or from the Great
Dukes of Galitch, Vladimir, Volynski, Polotzk, and particularly Kiow by Boleslas the
Victorious, Casimir the Great, Kings of Poland, and by Gedimir, Great Duke of
Lithuania. Thus the nobles were the only persons interested in the defence of
provinces whose inhabitants were estranged from the Poles, although they had
remained under their government from the time of the conquest. All the peasants of
Podolia and Volhynia were Rousniacs, or Little Russians, ignorant of the language or
customs of Poland, which may partly account for the success of the Russians in their
invasions of the Polish Republic. The Poles, who were persecuted by intolerant
Catholic priests, who disregarded the constitutions of the Polish Diet, abandoned their
lords without reluctance, and received willingly their countrymen, the Russian
soldiers, who spoke the same dialect as themselves. The division of Poland was, on
the part of Russia, not so much a lawless invasion as an act of reprisal on former
invaders. Had this leading historical fact been explained in the Russian manifesto,
which was published in 1772, so much obloquy might not have been attached to the
conduct of that people.
Leaving, however, the question of titlewhich, whatever may be the conflicting
opinions of moralists and legists, is, in the case of national tenures, usually decided
according to the power of the possessor to hold in feewe shall be next reminded of
the great benefits which British conquests have conferred upon remote and uncivilised
nations, particularly in the example of India; and we shall be called upon to show in
what manner Russia has compensated for her violent seizures of independent territory,
by any similar amelioration of the condition of its people. Before doing so, we shall
premise that we do not offer it as a justification of the policy of Russia. If, by chance,
the plunderer makes good use of his spoil, that is not a vindication of robbery; and
because the serf of Poland, the savage of Georgia, and the ryot of Bengal, enjoy better
laws under the sway of Russia and Great Britain, than they formerly possessed
beneath their own governmentsto argue that, therefore, these two powers stand
morally justified in having subjugated, with fire and sword, those three less civilised
states, would be to contend that America, instead of contenting herself with imparting
improvements to the unenlightened communities of Europe, by the peaceful but
irresistible means of her high example, is warranted in invading Naples or Spain, for
the purpose of rescuing their people from the thraldom of monarchy, or marching to
Rome, and in place of the Pope, installing a President in the palace of the Vatican!? It
is, then, with no view to the justification of war and violence, but solely for the
purpose of answering, by a few facts of unquestionable authenticity, those spurious
appeals to our sympathies, based upon the false assumption of Russian
aggrandisement, being but another term for the spread of barbarism and the extinction
of freedom and civilisation, that we glance at the proofs which are afforded in every
direction of the vast moral, political, and commercial advantages that have been
bestowed upon the countries annexed by conquest to that empire
The writers who have attempted to lead public opinion upon the subject, have not
scrupled to claim the interposition of our government with Russia, for the purpose of
restoring to freedom and independence those Caucasian tribes to which we have
before alluded, as having fallen under the partial dominion of Russia. Their previous
state of freedom may be appreciated, when we recollect that, within our own time, a
fierce war was waged between the most powerful of these nations? and the Turks, in
consequence of their having refused to continue to supply the harems of the latter with
a customary annual tribute of the handsomest of their daughters; offering, however, at
the same time, in lieu, a yearly contribution in money. We have already alluded to the
emancipating influence of Russian intervention over the commerce of the Black Sea,
the only channel by which the civilising intercourse with commercial nations can
extend to these unenlightened regions; and we have been told, by the very highest
authority, that their trade, agriculture, and social improvement, already attest the
beneficent effects of this improved policy. The following extract from a work of
great and deserved reputation, gives the most recent information upon the countries
under consideration; and it conveys, perhaps, all that could be said upon the effects of
Russian aggrandisement in these quarters: The southern declivity of these
mountains is highly fertile, abounding in forests and fountains, orchards, vineyards,
corn fields, and pastures in rich variety. Grapes, chestnuts, figs, &c., grow
spontaneously in these countries; as well as grain of every descriptionrice, cotton,
hemp, &c. But the inhabitants are barbarous and indolent. They consist of mountain
tribes, remarkably ferocious, whose delight is in war, and with whom robbery is a
hereditary trade; and their practice is to descend from their fastnesses and to sweep
everything away from the neighbouring plainsnot only grain and cattle, but men,
women, and children, who are carried into captivity. The names of the different tribes
are, the Georgians, Abassians, Lesghians, Ossetes, Circassians, Taschkents, Khists,
Ingooshes, Charabulaks, Tartars, Armenians, Jews, and in some parts wandering
Arabs. They are mostly barbarous in their habits, and idolatrous in their religion,
worshipping stars, mountains, rocks, and trees. There are among them Greek and
Armenian Christians, Mahometans, and Jews. Several of the tribes, particularly the
Circassians and Georgians, are accounted the handsomest people in the world; and the
females are much sought after by the eastern monarchs to be immured in their harems.
The inhabitants amount to about 900,000, who are partly ruled by petty sovereigns,
and partly by their seniors. The most famous are the Lesghians, who inhabit the
eastern regions, and, living by plunder, are the terror of the Armenians, Persians,
Turks, and Georgians. Their sole occupation is war, and their services can at any time
be purchased by every prince in the neighbourhood, for a supply of provisions and a
few silver roubles. Since the extension of the Russian empire in this quarter, many of
these mountain tribes have been restrained in their predatory habits. Under the iron
rule of that powerful State, they have been taught to tremble and obey; military posts
have been dispersed over the country, fortresses have been erected, towns have
arisen, and commerce and agriculture begin slowly to supplant the barbarous
pursuits of war and plunder, in which these mountain tribes have been hitherto
engaged.? But the work of civilisation in these wild regions is still slow; it is difficult
to reclaim the people from their long-settled habits of violence and disorder; and it
would not be safe for any traveller to pass alone through these countries, where he
would be exposed to robbery and murder.
Another ground of ceaseless jealousy, on the part of our philo-Turkish and Russo-
mania writers, has been discovered in the recent intervention of the Russian
diplomatists in the affairs of Wallachia and Moldavia. The condition of these two
Christian provinces, situated on the right bank of the Danube, and so frequently the
scenes of desolating wars between Turkey and her neighbours, has been perhaps more
pitiably deplorable than the lot of any other portion of this misgoverned empire. The
hospodars of governors of Moldavia and Wallachia were changed every year at the
will of the Sultan, and each brought a fresh retinue of greedy dependants, armed with
absolute power, to prey upon the defenceless inhabitants. These appointments, as is
the case now with every pachalick, were openly sold at Constantinople to the highest
bidder; and the hospodars were left to recover from their subjects the price of the
purchase, to pay an annual tribute to the Porte, which was usually levied in kind,
giving scope for the most arbitrary exactions; and, besides, appease the favourites at
court, who might otherwise intrigue against them. Need we be surprised that, under
such a state of things, the population decreased, agriculture was neglected, and
commerce and the arts of civilised existence were unknown in the finest countries of
the world? Not more than one-sixth? part of the land of Wallachia is at present
cultivated; and Mr. Wilkinson, the late English consul, estimated that, without any
extraordinary exertion, the existing population of Wallachia and Moldavia might, if
property were secured, raise twice the quantity of corn and double the number of
cattle now produced in those provinces. The treaty of 1829, between Russia and
Turkey, stipulates that the hospodars shall be elected for life, and that no tribute in
kind shall be levied; it also engages that a quarantine shall be placed on the Danube
frontier, thus separating these provinces from the rest of Turkey. This case of
intervention is appealed to as a proof of Russian ambition; and Lord Stuart, in the
course of his speech before alluded to, complains that, by this policy, its power is
increased in those quarters. Admitting that Russia interferes in behalf of those
unhappy countries with no loftier aim than the augmentation of her influence, and that
the result will be the separation of the Christian provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia
from the rest of the Turkish territorynay, admitting that this should prove inimical
to the interests of England (though the supposition is absurd enough, since what-ever
tends to advance the civilisation and augment the wealth of any part of the world must
be beneficial in the end to us who are the greatest commercial and manufacturing
people) still the English nation would, we sincerely hope, feel a disinterested
gratitude to the power which, by its merciful interposition, has rescued this suffering
Christian community from the cruel, remorseless, and harassing grasp of its
Mahometan oppressors.
Probably it will not be deemed necessary that we should trace the effects of Russian
Government over the territories torn at different epochs from the Persian empire: if,
however, we did not feel warranted in assuming that even those of our intelligent
readers, who may be the most inimical to the power of the Czar, will readily admit the
superiority of the organised despotism of St. Petersburg over the anarchic tyranny of
Teheran, we should be prepared to afford proofs, from the works of travellers,
themselves hostile to Russian interests, of the rapid ameliorations that have succeeded
to the extension of this colossal empire in those regions. Still less shall we be called
upon to pause to point out the benefits that must ensue from the annexation of the
Crimea to the dominions of the autocrat. Those wandering tribes of Crim Tartars, who
exchanged, for the service of the Empress Catherine, the barbarous government of the
descendants of Genghis Khan, and who received, as the first-fruits of a Christian
administration, the freedom of the commerce of the world, by the opening of the
navigation of the Black Sea, which immediately succeed to the encroachments of
Russia in that quarter, will gradually but, certainly, acquire the taste for trade; and, as
population increases and towns arise, they will abandon, of necessity, their migratory
habits, and become the denizens of civilised society
We shall, for the sake of brevity, restrict ourselves to the following short passage,
from the highest authority that can be consulted, upon the character of Russian policy
towards her latest maritime acquisition on the side of the Baltic. Finland, says
Malte-Brun, was averse to the union with Sweden, and has lost none of its privileges
by being incorporated with Russia: it is still governed by Swedish laws; schools have
been established during the last twenty years, and the peasantry are in every respect as
well protected as in Sweden.?
POLAND.
CHAPTER II
Poland, Russia, And England.
The foregoing statements, with reference to portions of the Russian acquisitions,
founded upon unquestionable authority, are calculated to awaken some doubts as to
the genuineness of those writings and speeches, upon the faith of which we are called
upon to subscribe to the orthodox belief in the barbarising tendency of all the
encroachments of that country; but these facts are unimportant, when we next have to
refer to another of its conquests, and to bring before our readers Poland, upon which
has been lavished more false sentiment, deluded sympathy, and amiable ignorance,
than on any other subject of the present age. This is a topic, however, upon which it
behoves us to enter with circumspection, since we shall have not only to encounter the
prepossessions of the ardent and sincere devotee, but also to meet the uncandid
weapons of bigotry and cant. Let us, therefore, as the only sure defence at all times
against such antagonists, clothe our arguments from the armoury of reason in the
panoply of truth. We will, moreover, reiterate, for we will not be misunderstood, that
it is no part of our purpose to attempt to justify the conduct of the partitioning powers
towards the Poles. On the contrary, we will join in the verdict of murder, robbery,
treason, perjury, and baseness, which every free nation and all honest men must award
to Russia, Prussia, and Austria, for their undissembled and unmitigated wickedness on
that occasion; nay, we will go further, and admit that all the infamy with which Burke,
Sheridan, and Fox laboured, by the force of eloquent genius, to overwhelm the
emissaries of British violence in India, was justly earned, at the very same period, by
the minions of Russian despotism in Poland. But our question is, not the conduct of
the conquerors, but the present, as compared with the former condition of the
conquered; the first is but an abstract and barren subject for the disquisition of the
moralist; the latter appeals to our sympathies, because it is pregnant with the destinies
of millions of our fellow creatures. Of how trifling consequence it must be to the
practical minded and humane people of Great Britain, or to the world at large,
whether Poland be governed by a king of this dynasty or of thatwhether he be
lineally descended from Boleslas the Great, or of the line of the Jagellonscontrasted
with the importance of the inquiries as to the social and political condition of its
peoplewhether they be as well or worse governed, clothed, fed, and lodged, in the
present day as compared with any former periodwhether the mass of the people be
elevated in the scale of moral and religious beingswhether the country enjoys a
smaller or larger amount of the blessings of peace; or whether the laws for the
protection of life and property are more or less justly administered! These are the all-
important inquiries about which we busy ourselves: and it is to cheat us of our stores
of philanthropy, by an appeal to the sympathy with which we regard those vital
interests of a whole people, that the declaimers and writers upon the subject,
invariably appeal to us in behalf of the oppressed and enslaved Polish nation;
carefully obscuring, amidst the cloud of epithets about ancient freedom, national
independence, glorious republic, and such like, the fact that, previously to the
dismemberment, the term nation implied only the noblesthat, down to the partition
of their territory, about nineteen out of every twenty of the inhabitants were slaves,
possessing no rights, civil or politicalthat about one in every twenty was a
noblemanand that this body of nobles formed the very worst aristocracy of ancient
or modern times; putting up and pulling down their kings at pleasure; passing selfish
laws, which gave them the power of life and death over their serfs, whom they sold
and bought like dogs or horses; usurping to each of themselves the privileges of a
petty sovereign, and denying to all besides the meanest rights of human beings; and
scorning all pursuits as degrading, except that of the sword, they engaged in incessant
wars with neighbouring states, or they plunged their own country into all the horrors
of anarchy, for the purpose of giving employment to themselves and their dependants.
In speaking of the Polish nation? previously to the dismemberment of that country by
Russia, Prussia, and Austria, we must not think of the great mass of the people, such
as is implied by the use of that term with reference to the English or French nation of
this day. The mass of the people were serfs, who had no legal protection and political
rightswho enjoyed no power over property of any kind, and who possessed less
security of life and limb than has been lately extended to the cattle of this island by
the act of Parliament against cruelty to animals! The nobles, then, although they
comprised but a mere fraction of the population, constituted the nation; the rest of the
inhabitants, the millions of serfs who tilled the soil, worked the mines, or did the
menial labour of the grandees, were actually, in the eye of the law, of no more
ranknay, as we have shown, they were accounted lessthan our horses, which,
after the toil of the day, lie down in security under the protection of Mr. Martin's
Benevolent act; whilst the slave of Poland possessed no such guarantee from the
wanton cruelty of an arbitrary owner.
To form a correct estimate of the former condition of this country, it is not necessary
to go back beyond the middle of the sixteenth century, previously to which the Poles,
in common with the other northern states, were barbarians; and, if they attained to
power, and exhibited some traits of rude splendour in their court and capital, they
were merely results of incessant wars, which, of course, plunged the great mass of the
people in deeper misery and degradation. At this early period of their country, we find
them the most restless and warlike of the northern nations; and the Poles, who are
now viewed only as a suffering and injured people, were, during the thirteenth,
fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, a most formidable and aggressive enemy to the
neighbouring empires. They ravaged successively Russia, Prussia, Lithuania,
Bohemia, and Hungary, and were, in turn, invaded by the Turks, Tartars, and
Russians. They knew no other employment than that of the sword. War, devastation,
and bloodshed were the only fashionable occupations for the nobility, whilst the
peasants reaped the fruits of famine and slaughter. Yet the historian, whose volumes,
perhaps, adorn the shelves of our colleges, and are deposited in the hands of the rising
generation, points to the spectacle of intellectual and moral creatures grovelling in the
abuse of a brute instinct shared equally by the shark and the tiger, and, pausing over
the hideous annals of human slaughter, ejaculatesGlory!
At the death, in 1572, of Sigismund Augustusthe last of the Jagello race, in whose
house the throne of Poland had been hereditarya new constitution was framed by
the nation (that is, the nobles), by which it was decreed that the monarchy should be
elective, and the choice of the king was free and open to all the nation (i.e. the
nobles). In this constitutionwhich was concocted for the exclusive benefit of the
aristocracy, and did not even notice the existence of the great mass of the wretched
people, the slavesit was agreed, amongst other enactments, that the nobles should
pay no taxes; that they should have the power of life and death over their vassals; that
all offices, civil, military, and ecclesiastical should belong to them; and that, in
choosing whom they would for a king, they were privileged to lay him under what
restrictions they pleased.
The mode of electing their kings, after the promulgation of this new constitution, was
characteristic of the nation. About 150,000 to 200,000 nobles, being the electors,
assembled together in a large plain. Those who possessed horses and arms were
mounted and arranged in battle array in the front, whilst such as were poor, and
consequently came on foot, and without regular arms, placed themselves, with scythes
or clubs in their hands, in the rear rank. Our readers will readily believe that such an
assembly as this, composed of warriors accustomed to violence, and with their arms at
hand, would form a dangerous deliberative body, and unless actuated by the loftiest
feelings of patriotism and virtue, it would degenerate into two armies of sanguinary
combatants. But what could we expect from these elections when we know that from
the death of Sigismund down to the time of the partition, Poland became one
universal scene of corruption, faction, and confusion? The members of the dietthe
nobles who had usurped the power of electing their kingwere ready to sell
themselves to the best bidder at the courts of Vienna, France, Saxony, Sweden, or
Brandenburg; nay, in the words of the learned and philosophical historian,? A polish
royal election was henceforth nothing more than a double auction of the throne, partly
in secret for the benefit of the voters, partly in public for the benefit of the state; or,
in words of the same authority, when alluding elsewhere to the change in the
constitution at the death of SigismundA volcano, in manner, burst forth in the
midst of Europe, whose eruptions at almost every change of government threatened in
turn every country far and near. Of the eleven kings of Poland, from Henry of Valois,
1572, to Stanislaus, 1764, hardly three were unanimously elected: foreign influence,
and a wild spirit of faction, continued from first to last.? In lamentable truth, almost
every election became the signal for a civil war, which usually lasted during the
greater portion of the next reign; and this, for the whole period from 1572 down to
1772, when the first partition was perpetrated by the three neighbouring powers,
Poland was the constant scene of anarchy and its attendant miseriesfire, bloodshed,
and famine. There is nothing in the history of the world comparable for confusion,
suffering, and wickedness to the condition of this unhappy kingdom during these two
centuries. War, even in its mildest form, is a perpetual violation of every principle of
religion and humanity. But foreign war is carried on with recognized laws for the
mitigation of its evils, and under which the rights of person and property are,
excepting in well understood cases, secured to the peaceable portions of communities.
Should an invasion or a conquest take place, the army of the invader or conqueror is
compelled, for self-defence, to preserve discipline, and to congregate as much as
possible round one center, by which the enemy's country is preserved from the
licentiousness of the victorious soldiers, and the more remote provinces almost
entirely escape the miseries of war. Besides, it becomes immediately the policy and
the interest of the victor to restore the newly acquired territory to its former condition
of quietness and prosperity, and with this view laws for the protection of the
inhabitants are generally enforced. But civil war, or intestine war, as we prefer to call
it, allows of none of these palliations. It spreads throughout the entire length and
breadth of a country, and devastates alike every section of the community, leaving no
spot where the olive of peace may flourish and afford shelter to the innocent, and
sparing no city which shall serve for a refuge to the timid. It desolates villages and
farms, as well as towns and capitals, carries the spirit of deadly animosity into every
relation of life, setting neighbours against neighbours, servants against masters, and
converting friends into foes. Nay, it penetrates into the scared precincts of domestic
life, and often infuses a Cain-like hatred into the hearts of brethren of the same womb.
Such is intestine war, which owns no law and permits no neutrality. And, in the midst
of this description of warfare, Poland groaned and bled, with scarcely the slightest
intermission, from 1572 down to 1772.
Many of those who will read this pamphlet have not the means or the leisure to
investigate, as they otherwise ought undoubtedly to do, the history of the government
ignorantly or mischievously praised by some of our writers and speakers, under the
name of the republic of Poland. Instead of such a government as we now understand
in speaking of the American republics, it was a despotism one hundred thousand time
worse than that of Turkey at this time, because it gave to 100,000 tyrants absolute
power over the lives of the rest of the community. The annals of republican Poland,
previously to its dismemberment are nothing but a history or anarchy; and such is the
title actually given to a work? that is only a horrible catalogue of tragedies, in which
the nobles are the actors; who crowd the scenes with murders, fires, torturings, and
famines, until the heart sickens with horror at the frightful spectacle. For nearly the
whole of the century immediately preceding the downfall of Poland, religious discord
was added to the other incalculable miseries of this country, owing to the rise of sects
of dissenters from the prevailing religion. Devastated by foreign and civil wars, and
by famine and the plague, that followed in their train, the exhaustion of peace itself
now served but to develop new miseries.? Fanaticism and bigotry armed themselves
with the sword, as soon as it was abandoned by the worshippers of Mars; and they
waged a warfare against the souls and bodies of their enemies with a fury that knew
no bounds; dealing out anathemas over wretches expiring at the stake, pulling down
churches, and even tearing up the graves of the dead! The historian who recounts the
calamities that were showered upon the unhappy millions, the slaves, during this
career of rapine and sacrilege, exclaims Oh! that some strong despot would come,
and in mercy rescue these people from themselves!
The intrigues of Russia did not at first promote the growth of this terrible disorder, as
might be objected by some of our readers. That power was itself struggling against
powerful enemies, and contending with the difficulties of internal reforms, down to
within half a century of the period when the partition of Poland took place. Those
wise reforms that gave to Russia, from the hands of Peter the Great, the seeds of a
power which has since grown to such greatness, and which, if adopted by Poland,
would have in all probability conducted her to a similar state of prosperity, were
absolutely rejected by the profligate nobles, because they must necessarily have
involved some amelioration of the fate of the people.
The picture we have drawn of Polish wickedness and corruption is not too highly
coloured, or if so, it is not by us: we have given the names and works of the authors
from whom we derive our information, and we appeal to them as the highest
authorities in the literature of Europe. What have been the retributive consequences to
empires, in all ages, of such a career of internal contention and profligacy as we have
just described? What was the just fate of Persia, Greece, and Rome, after they had
filled up the measure of their degeneracy? When the oak is decayed at its heart the
tree yields to the wind and falls prostrate to the earth; a ship that is rotten no longer
resists the pressure of surrounding water, and she disappears from the face of the
ocean; if, in constructing a bridge, the foundation of the piers be despised and
neglected, the entire edifice, superstructure and all, is overwhelmed in the stream.
And knowing that the immutable laws of nature govern equally the destines of
animated existence, shall we marvel to find that an empire which had for two hundred
years been decaying to its very center, whilst its boundaries presented no bulwark
against the influx of ranging enemies, which had all that time exhibited the nobility
wallowing in licentiousness, and the labouring population, that ought to be the
foundation and support of a country, insolently despised and trampled under foot?
ought we to wonder that such an empire at length reaped the sad harvest of its
iniquities, and was prostrated or swallowed up by the force of surrounding nations?
The fate of Poland was but a triumph of justice, without which its history would have
conveyed no moral for the benefit of posterity. The annals of the world do not exhibit
an example of a great nationsuch, for instance, as Prussia, united, well governed,
rising in intelligence, morals, and religion, and advancing in wealth and
civilizationfalling beneath the destroying hand of a conqueror. Such a catastrophe is
reserved for the chastisement of the self-abandoned, depraved, disorganized, ignorant,
and irreligious communities, and their anarchical governmentsfor Babylon and
Persepolisfor Poland and Turkey! But though the punishment was a righteous
infliction we need not vindicate the executioners. The murderer's sentence is just; but
we are not therefore bound to tolerate the hangman.
But we have yet to show, in the case of Poland, that the rod of affliction is
administered by the great Ruler of the universe, in a spirit not of vengeance, but of
mercy. We are now to proveand without claiming for the instruments of the
amelioration the merit of designing such happy results, or presuming to say that the
same or better effects might not have followed from more righteous casuesthat the
dismemberment of that empire has been followed by an increase in the amount of
peace, wealth, liberty, civilization, and happiness, enjoyed by the great mass of the
people. We shall not touch upon the fate of those portions of the Polish territory
which, at the partition, fell to the spoil of Austria and Prussia, further than to observe
that the present condition of their inhabitants, particularly of those of the latter, is,
when contrasted with that of any former era of their history, only to be compared to
the state of the blessed in the Elysian regions, as opposed to the sufferings of
Pandemonium.
Our business, however, lies with that portion of the (miscallea) Republic which fell to
the share of Russia; and we shall, in the first place, allude to the present state of that
section of the inhabitants which, from being by far the most numerous, ought, upon
the soundest principle of justice, to attract the primary notice of the inquirer. Slavery
no more exists in Poland; the peasant that tills the soil no longer ranks on a level with
the oxen that draw his plough; he can neither be murdered nor maimed at the caprice
of an insolent owner, but is as safe in life and limb, under the present laws of Poland,
as are the labourers of Sussex or Kent. The modern husbandman is not restricted to
mere personal freedom; he enjoys the right to possess property of all kindsnot even
excepting land,? against which the nobles of ancient republican Poland opposed
insuperable prohibitions. In a word, the peasantry of Poland now possess the control
over their own persons and fortunes, and are at liberty to pursue happiness? according
to their own free will and pleasure; which, after all that can be said for one
Government in preference to another, is nearly the amount of freedom that can be felt
to be possessed by the great mass of any nation. Let it not be supposed that we wish to
convey the impression that the labouring classes of the country under notice are
elevated to an equality with the mechanics of husbandmen of England and America;
from the very nature of circumstances, and from no one more than our iniquitous
corn-lawswhich have often starved our artisans in the midst of idle looms, and, at
the same time, doomed the ploughman of Poland to nakedness or sheep-skins, whilst
surrounded by granaries bursting with the best corn in the world, such an equality is,
in our day, impossible. But to show, in as few words as possible, what were the
natural fruits, after fifteen years of peace and comparative good government, to a
country that had, for two centuries, witnessed only the growth of discord, insecurity,
and famine, let us quote from a volume which bears intrinsic evidence of containing
an authentic and candid compendium of the history of Poland:
The condition of the country had continued to improve beyond all precedent; at no
former period of her history was the public wealth so great or so generally diffused.
Bridges and public roads, constructed at an enormous expense, frequently at the cost
of the Czar's treasury; the multitude of new habitations, remarkable for a neatness and
a regard to domestic comfort never before observed; the embellishments introduced
into the buildings, not merely of the rich, but of tradesmen and mechanics; the
encouragement afforded, and eagerly afforded, by the Government, to every useful
branch of industry; the progress made by agriculture in particular, the foundation of
Polish prosperity; the accumulation, on all sides, of national and individual wealth;
and, above all, the happy countenances of the inferior classes of societyexhibited a
wonderful contrast to what had lately been. The most immense of markets, Russiaa
market all but closed to the rest of Europeafforded constant activity to the
manufacturer. To prove this astonishing progress from deplorable, hopeless poverty to
successful enterprise, let one fact suffice. In 1815 there were scarcely one hundred
looms for coarse woolen cloths; at the commencement of the insurrection of 1830
there were six thousand.?
But it will very naturally and properly be inquiredHow did it happen that the
nation revolted against Russia in 1830, if the people enjoyed so much benefit from the
connection with that empire? We have thus far spoken only of the condition of the
mass of the people; to answer this objection, it will be necessary to refer to another
class, whose interests had always been opposed to the happiness and liberty of the
population at large. From the moment when Poland was constituted a kingdom, at the
treaty of Vienna, and made an appendage to the Russian crown, the nobles never
ceased to sigh for their ancient liberty (license) of electing a kingi.e. of periodically
selling themselves, by a double auction, as Heeren asserts, to the highest bidder.
They sighed also for those times when there was no law to protect the weak from their
outrages, and when a reign of violence and disorder gave them perpetual occasions of
making war upon each other, and of ravaging the unprotected provinces. The laws
which were passed for the defence of the lives and properties of the peasants were
regarded with jealousy? by the nobles, who viewed such enactments in the light of
encroachments upon their privileges; and they looked back to the days when they
alone constituted the nation, and all besides were but as the brutes of the field. It was
not merely indirectly, however, that the privileges of the aristocracy were curtailed,
one of the first acts of the Emperor Alexander being to restrict the use of titles to the
possessors of property in that country where, previously, the rank had descended to
every son,and continued to all their successors, thus multiplying titles indefinitely,
and adding a thousandfold to the mischiefs of conferring absolute power on a
particular class, by suffering it to be frequently possessed by desperadoes or paupers.
But the cause that, more than all others, had contributed to render the nobles
discontented, was the long-protracted peace, which deprived them of their accustomed
occupation and revenue; and which, however much it contributed to the happiness of
the industrious agriculturists and traders, brought nothing but ruin and discontent to a
body that retained too much of the pride and turbulence of character inherited from
their warlike ancestors, to dream of descending to pursuits of a commercial or
peaceful character. To present a clear view of the state of this order of society in
Poland, we will extract a few lines upon the subject from the work of Mr.Jacob,
before quoted. It will place his authority beyond question, if we remind our readers
that he is the gentleman who was selected, by a Parliamentary Committee, to make a
journey through the northern portions of Europe, for the purpose of making to his
employers a report of the corn trade of those regions. This individualwho was, of
course, not only selected for his efficient powers of observation, but also for his
character for honour and fidelityin speaking, incidentally, of the state of society of
Russian Poland, in his official report, makes this observation upon the Polish
gentry:The Polish gentry are too proud to follow any course but the military
career; and the Government, by its large standing army, encourages the feeling,
though the pay is scarcely sufficient to supply the officers with their expensive
uniforms. Whatever difficulties may present themselves to the placing out young men
of good family, none have had recourse to commerce; and if they had, such would be
treated by others as having lost their caste, and descended to a lower rank of society.
The consequence is, that all the trade and manufactures of the country are in the hands
of the Germans, or the Jews. The former seek to return home with the fortunes they
makethe latter do not possess the full rights of citizenship and cannot be expected
to take great interest in the prosperity of the country.
The above account of the tone of feeling, and of the condition of the aristocratic party
of Poland, written in 1825, accounts for the insurrection breaking out in 1830, when
every other class of its inhabitants was in the enjoyment of unprecedented happiness
and prosperity. And we hesitate not emphatically to assert, that it was wholly, and
solely, and exclusively, at the instigation, and for the selfish benefit, of this
aristocratic fraction of the people, that the Polish nation suffered for twelve months
the horrors of civil war, was thrown back in her career of improvement, and has since
had to endure the rigours of a conqueror's vengeance.? The Russian government was
aware of this; and its severity has since been chiefly directed towards the nobility. In
the ukase of the 9th (21st) November, 1831, directing that five thousand Poles should
be transported into the interior of the empire, it is expressly provided that they be
selected from the disaffected of the order of the gentry. And, in the order issued to the
Russian troops employed to quell the insurrection, they are required, under severe
penalties, to respect the houses and property of the Polish peasants.
Now, we put it frankly to such of our readers as do not enjoy the leisure, or perhaps
possess the taste for informing themselves of the subject in hand, excepting through
the periodical press and the orations of public speakers, whether we were not justified
in asserting that they have been cheated of their stores of compassion, by those who
call forth public sympathy for the oppressed Polish people, by appealing to their
former liberty, when the mass of the nation was in slavery; by deploring the tyranny
of the Russian government, which has served to give security and protection to the
great body of the poor, against the oppressions of the powerful nobles; by lauding the
ancient prosperity, wealth, grandeur, and happiness of a country which, until the
present age, was, at no period of its history, for fifteen successive years, exempt from
civil or foreign war from desolation, the plague, or famine;? and by imploring the
Powers to restore the Polish nation to its condition previously to the first partition in
1772, which would be to plunge nineteen-twentieths of the inhabitants form freedom
into bondage, from comparative happiness into the profoundest state of misery? But
worse effects than the waste of a little misdirected philanthropy follow from these
misrepresentations. The British indignation and hatred towards Russia? have been
awakened, and those fierce passions have taken possession of the public mind
throughout the kingdom so strongly as to place us in that most dangerous of all
predicaments, where the majority is sufficiently excited, by national prejudice, to be
brought within view of the hostile precipice, and only requires a further stimulus to
plunge the country into the horrible gulf of war. And who and what are the writers
and speakers that have made the subject of Poland the vehicle for conducting public
opinion to the verge of such a catastrophe? Are they cognizant, or are they unaware of
the merits of the question which we have now been faithfully discussing? In either
case, out upon such quackery! The empiric who, under pretence of healing their
bodily disorders, fires the blood or deranges the bowels of his patients, suffers the
penalty of homicide for the death of his victim, without inquiry whether the
destructive nostrum was ignorantly or knowingly administered. And how long shall
political quacks be permitted, without fear of punishment, and with no better
justification than the plea of ignorance, to inflame the minds and disorder the
understandings of a whole nation by stimulating them to a frenzy of hatred towards a
people more than a thousand miles distant, and preparing them for probably millions
of murders, by administering unchecked, their decoction of lies, their compounds of
invention and imposture, or their deadly doses of poisoned prejudice, gilded with
spurious philanthropy?
We have this (in allusion to the objections of those who take exceptions to Russian
aggrandizement upon the ground that the encroachments of that power are always
accompanied by the infliction of barbarous oppressions upon the conquered nations)
shown that in all cases where neighbouring states have been annexed to that empire,
the inhabitants have thereby been advanced in civilization and happiness. We have in
the case of Poland, which has undoubtedly benefited more than any other country by
its incorporation with Russia, dwelt at greater length upon this point, both because we
believe that the impression above referred to is all but universal in reference to this
people, and because we are convinced that from this erroneous idea originates nearly
all the hostility which, in just and generous mindsand they are the great
majorityis entertained towards the Russian government and people.
In examining the various grounds upon which those who discuss the subject take up
their hostile attitudes towards the Russian nation, we have with infinite surprise and
a deep conviction of the truth that a century of aristocratic government and
consequent foreign interference have impregnated all classes with the haughty and
arrogant spirit of their rulersdiscovered that Great Britain has been argued into a
warlike disposition against that remote empire, without one assignable motive or
grievance which could have even engendered a tone of resentment from our public
writers and speakers, had they been actuated only by the principles of common sense,
modest forbearance, and a regard for the benefit of the people. We have sought in
vain for cases of insult to our flag; for an example of spoliation committed upon
English merchants; for the appearance of hostile fleets in British waters threatening
our shores; for the denial of redress for injuries inflicted; for the refusal to liquidate
some just debt. We have sought for such wrongs as these at the hands of the Russian
Government to justify an appeal to menaces and a call for armaments from our Russo-
maniac orators and writers; but we find only charges of spoliation of Turkish territory,
assaults upon Poland, intrigues with Persia, designs upon Sweden, and conquests in
Georgiaaffairs with which we have less interest in embroiling ourselves than we
have with the struggle now raging in the province of Texas between the Americans
and Mexicans.
If we refer to the speech of Lord Dudley Stuart, before alluded to (which is a
compendium of all the accusations, suppositions, fears, dangers, and suspicions of
which the subject is susceptible), we shall find an alarming picture given of the future
growth of Russia dominion. Turkey, it seems, is to be only the germ of an empire
which shall extend not merely from Indus to the Pole, but throw forth its arms over
Europe and Asia, and embrace every people and nation between the Bay of Bengal
and the English Channel! Turkey once possessed, and the devouring process begins.
Austria and all Italy are to be swallowed up at a meal, Greece and the Ionian Islands
serving for side-dishes. Spain and Portugal follow as a dessert for this Dando of
Constantinople; and Louis Philippe and his empire are washed down afterwards with
Bordeaux and Champagne. Prussia and the smaller German States, having wisely
formed themselves into a trades union of some thirty or forty millions, might be
supposed by some persons to be secure from this tyrannical master. Nothing of the
kind! His lordship has discovered that this is a mere trick of Russia for making them a
richer prey. The German goose is only penned in this Prussian league that it may
fatten and be worthier of the fate that awaits it. When Michaelmas arrives it will be
served up in due state to the Russian eagle. Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, and Holland
are to be but as entremets for this national repast. And Persia, Egypt, Arabia, and
India, in one large bouquet, will furnish the exotics to perfume and adorn this banquet
of empires!? One trifling matter, however, Lord Stuart altogether forgets to take into
account: he omits to say how all the viands shall be paid for; in other words, in what
way the Russian Chancellor of the Exchequer will make good his budget when called
upon to clothe, feed, and pay armies to conquer a dozen powerful nations, some of
them richer than the conqueror; to meet the expenses of material to furnish the
commissariat, hire baggage wagons, charter transports, and to cover the thousand
other outgoings, including even the frauds and impositions incidental to a state of
warfare. His lordship forgets this, and in doing so calls to our recollection a
dreamour readers have probably experienced something of the kindin which we
found ourselves buoyed up in the air borne along we could not tell how. It was not
walking, flying, or swimming; yet on we glided through space, quite independent of
all the laws of naturehills disappearing, rivers drying up, seas changing into terra
firma, trees, walls, and castles vanishing at our approach; despising all the usual
impediments of sublunary travelling, caring no more for inns than if we had been a
shooting star, and regardless, like Halley's comet, of a change of horses. On we went,
with no luggage to look after, or hotel bills to settle, or postillions to pay, till, alas!
We awoke and discovered that we were only a mortal biped, trammelled by the law of
gravitation, and enslaved by the rules of political economy, privileged but to travel
along coarse, dirty roads, and compelled before starting, not only to calculate the cost
of the journey, but to put the money in our purse for coaches, steamboats, turnpike
gates, and inns, as well as their waiters, boots, porters, and chambermaids, besides a
round sum to cover extortions, if we would keep our temper. Now, Lord Stuart's case
was precisely similar to ours, with the exception that he did not wake to his vision of
supernatural locomotion. But to be serious. To those who resort, as a crowning
bugbear, to the threats of universal sovereignty as the ultimate aim of the Russian
Government, we have already in some degree replied by showing the weakness of that
empire, as exemplified in its uncultivated surface, in the scattered position of its
uncivilized people their poverty, ignorance, and diversified character and in the
circumstance of its being behind Great Britain and other countries in the march of
improvement and discovery.
But we can appeal to other facts, and to experience, to disprove the exaggerated views
that are put forth respecting the power of Russia; and in no instance were her
weakness and inability to concentrate and support an army more fully illustrated than
at the invasion of her territory by Bonaparte. At the battle of Borodinowhich was
the first great affair that took place between the French and the forces of the
Czarwe find, notwithstanding the alarm of invasion had been trumpeted through
Europe eighteen months previously, that the number of combatants brought, on that
bloody day, to the defence of their native soil, only amounted to 120,000 men, of
whom a large portion were without uniforms or arms, excepting scythes or other
similar weapons. Now, to illustrate the very superior strength of a nation whose
inhabitants are at once concentrated and rich, let us suppose so absurd a circumstance
as that Russia, after eighteen months of open preparation and threatening, were to
march an army of nearly half a million of soldiers into England; should we be found,
after so ample a warning, opposing only 120,000 fighting men, and that number only
half armed and clothed, in defence of our homes, our wives and daughters, in the first
battle-field? London alone could furnish and equip such an army, in so great a cause,
within six months! Nor did the deficiency of numbers arise from want of patriotism.
On the contrary, the Russians fought with unequalled ardour and bravery;? and the
only reason that Napoleon's troops were not on that occasion overwhelmed by ten
times their force, is, that the Government had not money to pay for transporting its
subjects from remote provinces to the scene of action, or funds to provide arms and
support them when collected together.
It has been well observed by a very sound authority, that China affords the best
answer to those who argue that Russia meditates hostile views towards our Indian
possessions. China is separated from Russia by an imaginary boundary only; and that
country is universally supposed to contain a vast deposit of riches, well worthy of the
spoiler's notice. Besides, it has not enjoyed the benefit of being civilized by English
or other Christian conquerorsan additional reasons for expecting to find a wealthy
pagan community, waiting, like unwrought mines, the labours of some Russian
Warren Hastings. Why, then, does not the Czar invade and Chinese empire,? which is
his next neighbour, and contains an unravaged soil, rather than contemplate, as the
alarmist writers and speakers predict he does, marching three thousand miles over
regions of burning deserts and ranges of snowy mountains, to Hindostan, where he
would find that Clive and Wellesley had preceded him? The reason for such
forbearance is, at the present day, as it was when that splendid but immoral genius,
Catherine, proposed to undertake this very expeditionthat there was not in Russia
sufficient available wealth to transport across its own surface an army large enough
to subjugate the Chinese. How, then, will they reach India through enemies
territories, and in spite of the power and influence of England? To warrant the
attempt, the Czar ought to possess, at least, the command of one hundred millions
sterling. Last year, he required but one million and a quarter, for which he was
compelled to solicit the aid of the capitalists of western Europe, and found great
difficulty, even after pledges of peace and protestations of good behaviour, in
obtaining the necessary loan!
Russia once in possession of Constantinople, and farewell to the liberties of
Europe! is the cry of those who are Possessed with the dread of Muscovite
ambition; and the very repetition of this prophecy is calculated to produce believers in
its truth. How it is that Russia is to conquer one hundred millions of people, superior
to her own population in wealth, freedom, instruction, and morality, and armed with
all the superiority of power which an ascendancy in those qualities ever has, and
always will bestow upon civilized communities over barbarous nations, not one of
those writers and speakers has condescended to explain; the way and means are
studiously avoided, or disregarded as of no consequence. Yet that Russia possesses no
superhuman properties, which enable her to disregard the ordinary impediments of
nature, we have already shown, in the example of her inability, when attacked, to
resist the invader, owing to the want of the money, food, arms, and clothing,
necessary for the transport and maintenance of large armies. With such an example of
her weakness in defensive operations as we have just given, we need not be surprised
that we have very abundant proofs of the feebleness of that empire when engaged in
aggressive warfare. All the hostilities carried on between Russia and her barbarous
neighbours, Turkey and Persia, have been full of evidences of the difficulty with
which the first Power achieved her successive conquests, and the precarious tenure by
which she has held them. Indeed, the last war with Turkey was, from the combined
causes of deficient means of transport, defective commissariat supplies, and want of
hospitalsall arising from the poverty of the Governmentprotracted so long and
attended with so great a loss of life to the invaders, that it left no doubt, with
reflecting minds, of the incompetency of Russia to sustain a war of aggression with
Prussia, Austria, or any other civilized State.
But Poland is the best and latest witness of the weakness and poverty of Russia.
Notwithstanding that the insurrection in that country broke out at a moment when the
preparations were not matured (owing to the rashness of the military youths of
Warsaw), and although the natives possessed no strong places, as in Belgium, and
their territory is destitute of mountain fastnesses, such as are found in Spain, Scotland,
or Switzerland, yet a mere handful of insurgents baffled the whole power of the Czar
for twelve months, several times defeating his ill-equipped armies with great
slaughter, and at last were subdued only through the perfidy of the Prussian
authorities. Surely with this experience of Russian weakness and poverty to appeal to,
we need not refer to the dangers apprehended for France, Germany, and Spain, unless
it be to ask whether a British Parliament, possessing so many unsatisfied claims upon
its time and attention at home, from two millions of paupers in a neighbouring island,
declared by authority to be without the means of subsistence; from the Dissenters of
this kingdom and the Catholics of Ireland; and from the discontented taxpayers at
large, whether the British legislature might not very properly leave the care of those
independent and powerful empires to their own governments, at least for the present,
until the business of the united empire shall have been more satisfactorily dispatched.
We shall, however, be told that in arguing for the weakness of this empire from past
experience, we lose sight of the difference between Russia in the Baltic and Russia in
the Mediterranean. The Government of St.Petersburg once transferred to
Constantinople, and Russia thenceforth becomes the first maritime power in Europe,
is the universal cry of the alarmists. How? Oh! the oaks of Bosnia, which are the
finest in the world for shipbuilding, would be then at her command! But where would
the sailors be found by a power possessing no mercantile marine? Napoleon thought
vainly to create a navy from these very forests; he ordered tools to be forged in the
country, and roads to be cut, by which the French legions might penetrate into Illyria,
and the oaks of Bosnia be thus transported to the harbours of the Adriatic. He,
moreover, contrived to bring the forests of Switzerland to Antwerp, by constructing
the famous shoot down the side of Mount Pilatus. The timber rotted in his harbours,
for how could the navies arise, whilst England commanded the trade of the ocean?
Napoleon Bonaparte was a madman in all that related to commercial science; and his
disastrous fate was the inevitable consequence; but they, who with his example before
them, can assume the existence of the largest navy in the world, in the possession of a
people whose carrying trade is in the hands of another nation, without the previous
growth of manufactures and commerce are, in that particular, more hopelessly mad
than the Corsican usurper. As well and as wisely might they assume the existence of
the ripened harvest when no seed had been sown, or reckon on the growth of a city
where neither builders nor inhabitants had ever existed! Until Russia becomes a great
trading empire, she will not be in even the path for surpassing us in naval power. We
have elsewhere shown that she cannot enlarge her commerce without thereby
enriching us, even more than any other people; how then can Russia hope to become
equal to ourselves upon the ocean, unless England should, for the purpose of enabling
her to do so, resolve to stand still??
But supposing that Russia were to seize the first moment of her occupancy of Turkey
to begin to build ships of war, and by the aid of Greek sailors to man a fleet
Constantinople; and presuming, moreover, that having obtained violent possession of
Norway, she were to employ similar means for erecting a naval power in the Baltic:
let us then call the attention of our readers to the defenceless and dependent position
in which her territory would be placed, owing to the peculiar geographical features of
those quarters of the globe. The sole outlet for the waters of the Sea of Marmora and
the Black Sea is by the canal of the Dardanelles, called the Hellespont; a passage
whose navigable width scarcely exceeds two thousand yards for a length of thirty
miles. To blockade the entrance of this Strait would require that a couple of ships of
the line, a frigate, and a steamer, should be stationed at its mouth, and with no larger
force than this might the egress of any vessel be prevented from the interior seas; and
not only so, but as these four men-of-war would constitute, in the eyes of all foreign
powers, and according to the law of nations, a sufficient blockade, they would deprive
Constantinople and the whole Turkish empire of all foreign trade, besides shutting out
from the commerce of the Mediterranean Sea, and the rest of the world, the entire
coast of the Euxine, and its thousands of miles of tributary rivers. If we now transfer
our attention to the northern portions of the Russian empire, we shall find that the
passage of the Sound, through which all the trade of the Baltic is compelled to pass, is
scarcely less narrow than that of the Hellespont; and provided Russia had gained
possession of the interior of these Straits, according to the supposition of the
alarmists, then half a dozen ships of war might hermetically seal the whole of
northern Europe against the trade of the world. In short, Russia, with the addition of
Turkey, would possess buttwo outlets, each more contracted than the River Thames at
Tilbury Fort; and as these could be declared in a state of blockade by less than a
dozen vessels of war, it is clear that nature herself has doomed Russia to be in a
condition of the most abject and prostrate subjection to the will of the maritime
powers. This is a point of paramount importance in estimating the future growth of
the country under consideration. It should never be lost sight of for a moment, in
arguing upon the subject, that Russia, in possession of Turkey and all the coasts of the
Black Sea, besides her present stupendous expanse of territory, would still be denied,
by the hand of Nature herself, a navigation of more than three miles in width, to
connect her millions of square leagues of territory with the rest of the globea
peculiarity the more striking since it could not be found to exist in any other quarter of
the earth. It is deserving of notice, that these two narrow straits, which guard the
entrances to the Black Sea and the Baltic, are nearly six months sail distant from each
other; and the track by which alone they can communicate lying through the Straits of
Dover and of Gibraltar, it must be apparent that, were Russia the mistress of those
channels, she could not pass form the one to the other, unless she were in amicable
connection with Great Britain.?
There remains but one more point requiring our consideration in connection with the
abstract question of Muscovite aggrandizement. They who predict the unbounded
extension of Russia, forget the inevitable grow of weakness which attends the undue
expansion of territorial dominion. Not only can they foresee without difficulty the
conquest of Germany, France, Spain, Persia, and India, but they are, at the same time,
blind to the dangers which must attend the attempt to incorporate into one cumbrous
empire these remote and heterogeneous nations. In all ages and climes nature has
given the boundaries for different communities; and we find that not only are the
several families of the earth generally enclosed by seas or mountains to mark the
limits of their respective territories, but the rivers usually flow through lands inhabited
by people of one languagethus constituting a double natural line of demarcation.
For example, the Alps and the Pyrenees afford the barriers beneath the opposite sides
of which repose the French, Spanish, and Italian nationswithin which arise the
Rhone and Garonne of France, the Tagus and Guadalquiver of the Peninsula, and the
Poland Adige of Italy; each of which may be almost said to water integral countries.
And, seeing that these allotments of the earth's surface are sufficiently defined by the
hand of nature to have drawn together in the earliest ages the scattered seed of Adam
into separate and distinct families, how infallibly shall the same natural limits suffice
to preserve those distinctions, when aided by those potent safeguards of nationality,
the diversified histories, religions, languages, and laws of ancient and powerful
empires! These are reflections that do not seem to have occurred to those writers who
assign the sovereignty of Europe and Asia over to Russia; and, even if they had
crossed their minds, such trifling impediments could hardly have discouraged them,
after having surmounted so much greater obstacles. For assuredly they who can
bestow upon Russia the supremacy of the seas, whilst her carrying trade is in the
hands of Englandor who can award her the victory over rich, united, and powerful
nations, without the previous possession of money, materiel, or provisions for her
armiesneed not be daunted by such trifling natural difficulties as the Himalayas or
the Alps present against the concentrations of government over her conquests; or feel
a moment's alarm about regulating with the same tariff the commerce of the Rhine,
Danube, Neva, and Ganges.
We have now, we believe, noticed every argument with which it has been the custom
to urge us to participate in Russian and Turkish quarrels and intrigues; and we have
endeavoured to show, by a candid appeal to facts, that the dangers with which we are
threatened in our commerce, colonies, or national dominion, from the power of
Russia, are chimerical. We have likewise shown that the prejudices existing in the
minds of the British people against that Power, and which have been industriously
fostered by the writers and speakers of the day, are founded in delusion and
misrepresentation; that the spread of Russian Empire has invariably increased, instead
of diminishing the growth of civilization and commerce; that she owes her extension
less to her own forces, which we have shown to be weak, than to the disunion or
barbarism of her neighbours; and that the very nature of her geographical position
must always keep her in dependence upon the goodwill of other maritime powers.
Where, then, are the motivesseeing that Russia has not inflicted the slightest wrong
upon us, or even contemplated one substantial injury to our peoplefor the warlike
spirit which now pervades the current writings and speeches upon the subject of the
nation? We do not knowfor we have not been able in our researches upon the
subject to discoverone solitary ground upon which to found a pretence, consistent
with reason, common sense, or justice, for going to war with Russia.
CHAPTER III
The Balance Of Power
Our object has not only been to deprecate war as the greatest evil that can befall a
people, but to show that we have no interest in maintaining the status quo of Turkey;
and, consequently, that the armaments, which, in a time of peace, are maintained, at
an enormous cost, for the purpose of making demonstrations in favour of that country,
and against Russia, might be reduced, and their expense spared to the taxpayers of the
British Empire.
We shall here be encountered with a very general prepossession in favour of our
maintaining what is termed a rank amongst the sates of the Continentwhich means,
not that we should be free from debt, or that our nation should be an example to all
others for the wealth, education, and virtues of its people, but that England shall be
consulted before any other countries presume to quarrel or fight; and that she shall be
ready, and shall be called upon, to take a part in every contention, either as mediator,
second, or principal. So prevalent and so little questioned has this egotistical spirit
become, that, when an honourable member rises in Parliament, to call upon a minister
of the crown to account for some political changes in Spain, Portugal, or
Turkeyinstead of the question encountering the laughter of the House (as such an
inquiry would probably do from the homely representatives who meet to attend to
their constituents affairs at Washington), or the questioner being put down by the
functionary, with something after Cain's answer, Am I the Spaniard's keeper?the
latter offers grave explanations and excuses, whilst the audience looks on with silent
attention, and though every word of our foreign secretary were pregnant with the fate
of nations bowing to his sway.
If we go back through the Parliamentary debates of the last few reigns, we shall find
this singular feature in our national characterthe passion for meddling with the
affairs of foreignersmore strikingly prominent in every succeeding session; and, at
the breaking out of the French Revolution, the reader is astonished to see that the
characters of the leaders of the mobs of Paris, Marseilles, and Lyons, and the conduct
of the government of France, became the constant subjects of discussion in the House
of Commons, almost to the exclusion of matters of domestic interestPitt and Burke
on one side, and Fox, Grey, and Sheridan on the other, attacking and defending the
champions of the Revolution, with the same ardour as if the British legislature were a
responsible tribunal, erected over the whole of Christendom, and endowed with
powers to decide without appeal, the destinies of all the potentates and public men of
Europe.? Unhappily, the same passion had impregnated the minds of the public
generally (as it continues to do down to our own day), and the result was, as
everybody knows, the Bourbon crusade. But England, in taking upon herself to make
war with the spirit of the age, encountered the Fates; and, instead of destroying that
infant freedom which, however monstrous and hideous at its birth, was destined to
throw off its bloody swathes, and, in spite of the enmity of the world, to dispense the
first taste of liberty to Europeshe was herself the nurse that, by her opposition,
rocked the French Revolution into vigorous maturity.
Our history during the last century may be called the tragedy of British intervention
in the politics of Europe; in which princes, diplomatists, peers, and generals have
been the authors and actorsthe people the victims; and the moral will be exhibited
to the latest posterity in 800 millions of debt.
We have said that our proposal to reduce our armaments will be opposed upon the
plea of maintaining a proper attitude, as it is called, amongst the nations of Europe.
British intervention in the state policy of the Continent has been usually excused
under the two stock pretences of maintaining the balance of power in Europe, and of
protecting our commerce; upon which two subjects, as they bear indirectly on the
question in hand, we shall next offer a few observations.
The first instance in which we find the balance of power alluded to in a king's
speech is on the occasion of the last address of William III. to his Parliament,
December 31, 1701, where he concludes by sayingI will only add thisif you do
in good earnest desire to see England hold the balance of Europe, it will appear by
your right improving the present opportunity. From this period down to almost our
time (latterly indeed, the phrase has become, like many other cant terms, nearly
obsolete), there will be found, in almost every successive king's speech, a constant
recurrence to the balance of Europe; by which, we may rest assured, was always
means, however it might be concealed under pretended alarm for the equilibrium of
power or the safety of the Continent, the desire to see England hold the balance.
The phrase was found to please the public ear; it implied something of equity; whilst
England, holding the balance of Europe in her hand, sounded like filling the office of
Justice herself to one half of the globe. Of course such a post of honour could not be
maintained, or its dignity asserted, without a proper attendance of guards and officers,
and we consequently find that at about this period of our history large standing armies
began to be called for; and not only were the supplies solicited by the government
from time to time under the plea of preserving the liberties of Europe, but in the
annual mutiny bill (the same in form as is now passed every year) the preamble stated,
amongst other motives, that the annual army was voted for the purpose of preserving
the balance of power in Europe. The balance of power, then, becomes an important
practical subject for investigation. It appeals directly to the business and bosoms of
our readers, since it is implicated with an expenditure of more than a dozen millions
of money per annum, every farthing of which goes, in the shape of taxation, from the
pockets of the public.
Such of our readers as have not investigated this subject will not be a little astonished
to find a great discrepancy in the several definitions of what is actually meant by the
balance of power. The theoryfor it has never yet been applied to
practiceappears, after upwards of a century of acknowledged existence, to be less
understood now than ever. Latterly, indeed, many intelligent and practical-minded
politicians have thrown the question overboard, along with that of the balance of
trade, of which number, without participating in their favoured attributes, we claim to
be ranked as one. The balance of power, which has for a hundred years been the
burden of kings speeches, the theme of statesmen, the ground of solemn treaties, and
the cause of wars; which has served, down to the very year in which we write, and
which will, no doubt, continue to serve for years to come as a pretence for
maintaining enormous standing armaments by land and sea, at a cost of many
hundreds of millions of treasurethe balance of power is a chimera! It is not a
fallacy, a mistake, an imposture, it is an undescribed, indescribable, incomprehensible
nothing; mere words, conveying to the mind not ideas, but sounds like those equally
barren syllables which our ancestors put together for the purpose of puzzling
themselves about words, in the shape of Prester John or the philosopher's stone! We
are bound, however, to see what are the best definitions of this theory.
By this balance, says Vattel, is to be understood such a disposition of things as that
no one potentate or state shall be able absolutely to predominate and prescribe laws to
the other.Law of Nations, b. 3, c. 3, 47.
What is usually termed a balance of power, says Gentz, is that constitution
subsisting amongst neighbouring states more or less connected with one another by
virtue of which no one among them can injure the independence of essential rights of
another without meeting with effectual resistance on some side, and, consequently,
exposing itself to danger.Fragments on the Political Balance, c. 1.
The grand and distinguishing feature of the balancing system, says Brougham, is
the perpetual attention to foreign affairs which it inculcates, the constant watchfulness
over every nation which it prescribes, the subjection in which it places all national
passions and antipathies to the fine and delicate view of remote expediency, the
unceasing care which it dictates of nations most remotely situated and apparently
unconnected with ourselves, the general union which it has effected of all the
European powers, obeying certain laws, and actuated in general by a common
principle; in fine, the right of mutual inspection universally recognized among
civilized states in the rights of public envoys and residents.Brougham's Colonial
Policy, b. 3, 1.
These are the best definitions we have been able to discover of the system
denominated the balance of power. In the first place it must be remarked that, taking
any one of these descriptions separately, it is so vague as to impart no knowledge
even of the writer's meaning, whilst, if taken together, one confuses and contradicts
another, Gentz describing it to be a constitution subsisting among neighbouring
states more or less connected with each other, whilst Brougham defines it as
dictating a care of nations most remotely situated and apparently unconnected with
ourselves. Then it would really appear, from the laudatory tone applied to the system
by Vattel, who says that it is such a disposition of things as that no one potentate or
state shall be able absolutely to predominate and prescribe laws to the others, as well
as from the complacent manner in which Brougham states the general union which it
has effected of all the European powers, obeying certain laws, and actuated in general
by a common principle, it would seem from such assurance as these that there was
no necessity for that perpetual attention to foreign affairs, or that constant
watchfulness over every nation, which the latter authority tells us the system
prescribes and inculcates. The only point on which these writers, in common with
many other authors and speakers in favour of the balance of power, agree, is in the
fundamental delusion that such a system was ever acceded to by the nations of
Europe. To judge from the assumption by Brougham of a general union among all
the European powers; from the allusion made by Gentz to that constitution subsisting
among neighbouring states; or from Vattel's reference to a disposition of
things,&c., one might be justified in inferring that a kind of federal union had existed
for the last century throughout Europe in which the several kingdoms had found, like
the States of America, uninterrupted peace and prosperity. But we should like to know
at what period of history such a compact amongst the nations of the Continent was
entered into. Was it previously to the peace of Utrecht? Was it antecedent to the
Austrian war of succession? Was it prior to the seven years war or to the American
war? Or did it exist during the French revolutionary wars? Nay, what period of the
centuries during which Europe has (with only just sufficient intervals to enable the
combatants to recruit their wasted energies) been one vast and continued battle-field,
will Lord Brougham fix upon to illustrate the salutary working of that balancing
system which places all national passions and antipathies in subjection to the fine
and delicate view of remote expediency?
Again, at what epoch did the nations of the Continent subscribe to that constitution
by virtue of which, according to Gentz, no one among them can injure the
independence or essential rights of another? Did this constitution exist whilst Britain
was spoiling the Dutch at the Cape or in the east? or when she dispossessed France of
Canada? or (worse outrage by far) did it exist when England violated the essential
rights of Spain by taking forcible and felonious possession of a portion of her native
soil?? Had this constitution been subscribed by Russia, Prussia, and Austria at the
moment when they signed the partition of Poland? or by France when she
amalgamated with a portion of Switzerland? By Austria at the acquisition of
Lombardy? by Russia when dismembering Sweden, Turkey, and Persia? or by Prussia
before incorporating Silesia?
So far from any such confederation having ever been, by written, verbal, or implied
agreement, entered into by the European powers, obeying certain laws, and actuated
in general by a common principle; the theory of the balance of power has, we
believe, generally been interpreted, by those who, from age to age, have, parrotlike,
used the phrase, to be a system invented for the very purpose of supplying the want of
such a combination. Regarding it for a moment in this point of view, we should still
expect to find that the balancing system had, at some period of modern history,
been recognised and agreed to by all the Continental states; and that it had created a
spirit of mutual concession and guarantee, by which the weaker and more powerful
empires were placed upon a footing of equal security, and by which any one potentate
or state was absolutely unable to predominate over the others. But, instead of any
such self-denial, we discover that the balance of Europe has merely meant (if it has
had a meaning) that which our blunt Dutch king openly avowed as his aim to his
parliamenta desire, on the part of the great powers, to hold the balance of
Europe. England has, for nearly a century, held the European scalesnot with the
blindness of the goddess of justice herself, or with a view to the equilibrium of
opposite interests, but with a Cyclopean eye to her own aggrandisement. The same
lust of conquest has actuated, up to the measure of their abilities, the other great
powers; and, if we find the smaller states still, in the majority of instances, preserving
their independent existence, it is owing, not to the watchful guardianship of the
balancing system, but to the limits which nature herself has set to the undue
extension of territorial dominionnot only by the physical boundaries of different
countries, but in those still more formidable moral impediments to the invaderthe
unity of language, laws, customs, and traditions; the instinct of patriotism and
freedom; the hereditary rights of rulers; and, though last not least, that homage to the
restraints of justice which nations and public bodies? have in all ages avowed,
however they may have found excuses for evading it.
So far, then, as we can understand the subject, the theory of a balance of power is a
mere chimeraa creation of the politician's braina phantasm, without definite form
or tangible existencea mere conjunction of syllables, forming words which convey
sound without meaning. Yet these words have been echoed by the greatest orators and
statesmen of England; they gingled successively from the lips of Bolingbroke,
Chatham, Pitt, Burke, Fox, Sheridan, Grey, and Broughamay, even whilst we were
in the act of stripping the maritime nations of the Continent of their colonies, then
regarded as the sole source of commercial greatness; whilst we stood sword in hand
upon the neck of Spain, or planted our standard on the rock of Malta; and even when
England usurped the dominion of the ocean, and attempted to extend the sphere of
human despotism over another element, by insolently putting barriers upon that
highway of nationseven then the tongues of our orators resounded most loudly with
the praises of the balance of power!? There would be something peculiarly
humiliating in connection with this subject, in beholding the greatest minds of
successive ages, instead of exercising the faculty of thought, become the mere
automata of authority, and retail, with less examination than the haberdasher bestows
upon the length, breadth, and quality of his wares, the sentiments bequeathed from
former generations of writers and speakersbut that, unhappily, the annals of
philosophy and of past religions afford too many examples of the triumph of mere
imitativeness over the higher faculties of the human intellect.
We must not, however, pass over the balance of power without at least
endeavouring to discover the meaning of a phrase which still enters into the preamble
of an annual act of Parliament, for raising and maintaining a standing army of ninety
thousand men. The theory, according to the historian Robertson, was first invented by
the Machiavellian statesmen of Italy during the prosperous era of the Florentine
(miscalled) republic; and it was imported into Western Europe in the early part of the
sixteenth century, and became fashionable, to use the very word of the historian of
Charles V., along with many other modes borrowed, about the same time, from that
commercial and civilised people. This explanation of its origin does not meet with the
concurrence of some other writers; for it is singular, but still consistent with the ignis-
fatuus character of the balance of power, that scarcely two authors agree, either as
to the nature or the precise period of invention of the system. Lord Brougham claims
for the theory an origin as remote as the time of the Athenians; and Hume describes
Demosthenes to have been the first advocate of the balancing systemvery
recommendatory, remembering that ancient history is little else than a calendar of
savage wars! There can be little doubt, however, that the idea, by whomsoever or at
whatever epoch conceived, sprang from that first instinct of our nature, fear, and
originally meant at least some scheme for preventing the dangerous growth of the
power of any particular state; that power being always regarded, be it well
remembered, as solely the offspring of conquest and aggrandisement:
notwithstanding, as we have had occasion to show in a former page of this pamphlet,
in the case of England and the United States, that labour, improvements, and
discoveries confer the greatest strength upon a people; and that, by these alone, and
not by the sword of the conqueror, can nations, in modern and all future times, hope
to rise to supreme power and grandeur. And it must be obvious that a system
professing to observe a balance of powerby which, says Vattel, no one potentate
or state shall be able absolutely to predominate; or, according to Gentz, to injure the
independence or essential rights of another; by which, says Brougham, a perpetual
attention to foreign affairs is inculcated, and a constant watchfulness over every
nation is prescribed:it must be obvious that such a balancing systemif it
disregards those swiftest strides towards power which are making by nations excelling
in mechanical and chemical science, industry, education, morality, and
freedommust be altogether chimerical.
Lord Bacon, indeed, took a broader and more comprehensive view of this question
when he wrote, in his essay on empireFirst, for their neighbours, there can no
general rule be given (the occasions are so variable) save one, which ever holdeth;
which is, that princes do keep due sentinel, that none of their neighbours do overgrow
so (by increase of territory, by embracing of trade, by approaches, or the like), as they
become more able to annoy them than they were: and this is generally the work of
standing councils, to see and to hinder it. This appears to us to be the only sound and
correct view of such a principle as is generally understood by the phrase, the balance
of power. It involves, however, such a dereliction of justice, and utter absence of
conscientiousness, that subsequent writers upon the subject have not dared to follow
out the principle of hindering the growth of trade, and the like (which includes all
advance in civilisation); although, to treat it in any other manner than that in which it
is handled by this wisest, greatest, meanest of mankind, is to abandon the whole
system to contempt, as unsound, insufficient, and illusory.? As for the rule of Lord
Bacon; were the great enemy of mankind himself to summon a council, to devise a
law of nations which should convert this fair earth, with all its capacity for life,
enjoyment, and goodness, into one vast theatre of death and misery, more dismal than
his own Pandemonium, the very words of the philosopher would compose that law! It
would reduce us even below the level of the brute animals. They do not make war
against their own instincts; but this rule would, if acted upon universally, plunge us
into a war of annihilation with that instinct of progression which is the distinguishing
nature of intellectual man. It would forbid all increase in knowledge, which, by the
great writer's own authority, is power. It would interdict the growth of morality and
freedom, which are power. Were Lord Bacon's rule enforced, not only would the
uninstructed Russians commence a crusade against our steam-engines and our skilful
artisans; the still more barbarous Turk would be called upon to destroy the civilisation
and commerce of Petersburg; the savage African would be warranted, nay, compelled
to reduce the turbaned Osmanli to his own nakedness and a wigwam; nor would the
levelling strife cease until either the rule were abrogated, or mankind had been
reduced to the only pristine possessionsteeth and nails!?
The balance of power, then, might in the first place, be very well dismissed as
chimera, because no state of things, such as the disposition, constitution, or
union of European powers referred to as the basis of their system, by Vattel, Gentz,
and Brougham, ever did exist; and, secondly, the theory could, on other grounds, be
discarded as fallacious, since it gives no definitionwhether by breadth of territory,
number of inhabitants, or extent of wealthaccording to which, in balancing the
respective powers, each state shall be estimated; whilst, lastly, it would be altogether
incomplete and inoperative from neglecting, or refusing to provide against, the silent
and peaceful aggrandisements which spring from improvement and labour. Upon
these triple grounds, the question of the balance of power might be dismissed from
further consideration. We shall, however, assume, merely for the sake of argument,
that such an equilibrium existed in complete efficiency; and the first inquiry that
suggests itself isUpon what principle is Turkey made a member of this European
system? The Turks, at least, will be admitted by everybody, to form no party to this
union; nor do they give that perpetual attention to foreign affairs which it
inculcates; or that constant watchfulness over every nation which it prescribes.
They never read of the balance of power in the Koran; and they live in pious and
orthodox ignorance of the authorities for this fine and delicate theory; for the names
of Bacon, Vattel, and Brougham are nowhere recorded by the prophet! Turkey cannot
enter into the political system of Europe; for the Turks are not Europeans. During the
nearly four centuries that that people have been encamped upon the finest soil of the
Continent, so far from becoming one of the families of Christendom, they have not
adopted one European custom. Their habits are still Oriental, as when they first
crossed the Bosphorus. They scrupulously exclude their females from the society of
the other sex; they wear the Asiatic dress; sit cross-legged, or loll upon couches, using
neither chair nor bed; they shave their heads, retaining their beards; and they use their
fingers still, in the place of those civilised substitutes, knives and forks. Equally
uninfluenced, after nearly four hundred years contact with Europeans, is the
Osmanli's condition by the discoveries and improvements of modern times. A printing
press may be said to be unknown in Turkey; or, if one be found at Constantinople, it
is in the hands of foreigners. The steam engine, gas, the mariner's compass, paper
money, vaccination, canals, the spinning-jenny, and railroads, are mysteries not yet
dreamed about by Ottoman philosophers. Literature and science are so far from
finding disciples amongst the Turks, that that people have been renowned as twice the
destroyers of learning: in the splendid though corrupt remains of Greek literature at
Constantinople; and by extinguishing the dawn of experimental philosophy, at the
subversion of the Caliphate.
Down to within a few years of the present time, the Turks were viewed only as the
scourge of Christian Europe. When, about a century and a half ago, Louis XIV.
entered into an alliance with the Sublime Porte, the whole civilised world rang with
indignation at the infamous and unnatural combination. And when, more than a
century later, on the occasion of the capture of Ockzakow by the Russians, our most
powerful minister (Pitt) proposed to forward succours to the aid of Turkey, such was
the spirit of opposition manifested by the country, that the armaments already
prepared by the Government, under the sanction of a servile majority in the
Parliament, were reluctantly countermanded. On that occasion, both Burke and Grey,
although advocates of the balancing system, refused to acknowledge that the Turks
formed parties to it. He had never before heard it set forth,? said the former, that
the Turkish empire was considered as a part of the balance of power in Europe; they
had nothing to do with European power; they considered themselves as wholly
Asiatic. Where was the Turkish resident at our Court, the Court of Prussia, or of
Holland? They despised and contemned all Christian princes as infidels, and only
wished to subdue and exterminate them and their people. What had these worse than
savages to do with the powers of Europe, but to spread war, destruction, and
pestilence amongst them? All that was holy in religion, all that was moral and
humane, demanded an abhorrence of everything that tended to extend the power of
that cruel and wasteful empire. Any Christian power was to be preferred to these
destructive savages. He had heard, with horror, that the Emperor had been obliged to
give up to this abominable power those charming countries which border upon the
Danube to devastation and pestilence. And, at a subsequent debate upon the same
question, Mr. Grey (now Earl Grey), who had been a still more zealous champion of
the balance of power (having once declared that every peasant in England was deeply
interested in its preservation), said, that England had pursued this object too far
would not be denied, when it was considered that, in her progress after it, she had
travelled as far as the banks of the Black Sea.
And are the Turks of our own day less cruel or savage, that we should not only admit
them within the pale of civilised nations, but impose on our people, for their defence,
the burden of enormous armaments? We appeal to Dr. Walsh's late account of the
atrocities perpetrated at Constantinople upon the unarmed Greeks, at the revolt of that
people; we refer to the horrible massacre of the peaceful and civilised population of
Scio! Is this empire less wasteful now than when, forty-five years ago, Burke
mourned over those fine provinces which were consigned to devastation and the
crescent? We again recur to the description given to us by Walsh, and every other
recent traveller, of the desolation that reigns throughout the Turkish dominions; we
adduce those ruined cities, those deserted, though still fertile plains, and that
population, wasting away in regions where ten times its numbers once found
abundance; we point to the deplorable condition of agriculture, commerce,
manufactures, and all the arts of life, in a country which comprised the ancient
civilised worldto prove the waste of human life, happiness, wealth, and civilisation,
that is suffered every year at the hands of this Mahometan Government. Has the
pestilence ceased to ravage the Turkish territory? The quarantine now blockades, in a
manner, from Christian Europe, Constantinoplestanding upon the same latitude as
Naples, Oporto, and New York, and chosen by Constantine as the most salubrious
spot on eartha city now the impure nurse and victim of the plague! Does
Christianity or public virtue call upon us, in 1836, more than they did in 1791, to arm
ourselves in behalf of Turkey? We point to the Koran and those orthodox vices which
it inculcateswe refer to the slave trade and to polygamy, abominations which still
flourish in that country, under the precept of the impostor of Meccato prove that
neither religion nor morality can sanction the government of Great Britain in shedding
a drop of the blood, or lavishing the treasure of Englishmen for the support of this
cruel, savage, wasteful, devastating, pestilential, and infidel nation, in a
conflict with Russia or any other Christian people.
There remains one, and but one, other point from which to view the question of the
balance of power, and we may then bid adieu to this monument of the credulity and
facility of the human intellect for everor, at least, until we happen, perchance, to
meet with it in the next year's Mutiny Bill, supplying the whereas of an act of
parliament, with a pretext for maintaining a standing army of upwards of 90,000 men!
Russia, in possession of Constantinople, say the alarmists, would possess a port open
at all seasons; the materials for constructing ships; vast tracts of fertile land, capable
of producing cotton, silk, wool, etc.; and she would be placed in a situation of easy
access to our shoresall of which would tend to destroy the balance of power, and
put in danger the interests of the British commerce, in particular. But New York, a
port far more commodious than Constantinople, is open at all seasons; the United
States possess materials without end for shipbuilding; their boundless territory of
fertile land is adapted for the growth of cotton, silk, wool, etc.; and New York is next
door to Liverpool; forthanks to providence!there is no land intervening between
the American continent and the shores of this United Kingdom. Yet, we have never
heard that the North American continent forms any part of the balance of power!
Twenty-four sovereign, free, and independent States, altogether forgotten in a
balancing system, which dictates an increasing care even of nations most remotely
situated, and apparently unconnected with ourselves! We doubt the equilibrium can
hardly be maintained. This is not all. There is the entire southern continent, from the
Isthmus of Panama to the point of Cape Horn, likewise entirely omitted. Mercy on us,
one scale will certainly kick the beam! Twelve separate empires of South America,
bounded on one extremity by Mexico, and on the other by Patagonia; and the vast
expanse of territory, settled and unsettled, under the dominion of the Government of
Washington, and, altogether, comprising one-third of the habitable globe, have been
quite forgotten in a balance of power!
Not having been supplied by the authors of the theory with any rule by which to judge
of their mode of estimating or weighing the powers of the respective parties to the
balancing system, and being equally uninformed as to the qualifications required from
those States which aspired to the union, it would be presumptuous to guess upon what
principle Turkey is admitted to a connection with England, from which Brazil is
excluded; or why, in forming a balance of the civilised powers, the United States are
rejected, in order to give room to admit Russia into one of the scales. It cannot be
from proximity that Turkey is preferred to the Brazils. A voyage from Rio Janeiro to
Liverpool will average about forty days; whilst the time taken in going from England
to Constantinople usually reaches double that period. Nor can it arise from a
comparison of our commerce with the two countries, which is four times as valuable
with the American as the European State. Then a wise and provident regard to the
future cannot be the guiding motive, since the prospect is altogether in favour of the
trans-Atlantic empire, which embraces within its bounds a territory equalling in extent
the whole of Russia in Europe, and forming the finest, and destined in all probability
to be, both as respects vegetable and mineral riches, the most productive amongst all
the countries in the world. Religion, language, national character, and the plague, all
oppose the claim of the Turk to this preference over the Christian rival; and we can
only suspend our conjectures, and entreat that some advocate of the balancing
system will inform the world upon what principle, commercial, social, or
politicalin short, upon what ground, consistent with common sensedoes the
foreign secretary involve Great Britain in the barbarian politics of the Ottoman
Government, to the manifest risk of future wars, and the present pecuniary sacrifice
attending standing armaments; whilst, with another State, with which we are more
deeply interested as traders, more identified as men, and from which we are, navally
speaking, less distant, no political intercourse is found necessary? The same argument
applies, with more or less force, to the other eleven South American States, with each
of which our commerce averages probably more in amount than with Turkey; yet,
although they are Christian communities, all but universally at peace,? and
notwithstanding the future influence which they are inevitably destined to exercise
over the interests of the entire worldthese countries have not been thought worthy
of admission into that system of civilised nations which is now agitated from one
extremity to the other with the fate of Mahometan Turkey! However impossible it
may be to speculate successfully upon the intended operation of a system which, in
reality, never existed except in the precincts of the politician's brain, still it must be
remembered that, at the time the theory was first invented, it proposed to give to the
European powers owning American colonies, a weight proportioned to the extent of
those possessions; and the question then ariseswhich we shall merely propound,
and leave in despair, for the solution of such of our readers as may wish to pursue this
chimerical inquiry still fartherBy what ingenious process was the balance of power
preserved, when England, Spain, and Portugal were deprived of their trans-Atlantic
territories? Canning, indeed, once talked of calling into existence a new world, to
adjust the balance of the old; but, as in many other oratorical flourishes of our State-
rhetorician, he meant quite a different practical object; in other and more homely
language, that statesman proposed to acknowledge the independence of South
Americaten years after every private individual of judgment had predicted the
freedom of that Continent. To this day those States which once formed so important a
part of the balancing system, as appendages to the mother countries, are wanting in
the scales of Europe; and by what arts, whether by false weights or the legerdemain of
the nation still holding the balance, the equilibrium can be preserved without them,
constituting as they do nearly one-third of the terrestrial globe, is a mystery beyond
the reach of our powers of divination.
We glanced at the comparative claims of Russia and the United States to be included
in this imaginary States-union; a very few words upon this point are all that we shall
add to our probably already too extended notice of the balance of power.
Upon whatever principle the theory under consideration may have been at first
devisedwhether, according to Gentz, for the purpose of uniting neighbouring States,
or, as Brougham asserts, with a view to the union of all the European powersit is
certain that it would have been held fatal to the success of the balancing system for
any one power, and that one amongst the most civilised, wealthy, and commercial, to
have refused to subscribe to its constitution. Yet the United States (for the number of
its inhabitants), the richest, the most commercial, and, for either attack or defence, the
most powerful of modern empires; a country which possesses a wider surface of
fertile land than Russia could boast even with the accession of Turkey; and, instead of
being imprisoned, like Russia, by the Dardanelles and the Sound, owning five
thousand miles of coast, washed by two oceans, and open to the whole world; the
United States are not parties to the balance of power! Ignorant as we are of the rule of
admission to and exclusion from this balancing system, it would be vain to conjecture
why Russia should be entitled, not only to be a member of this union, but to engross
its exclusive attention, whilst North America is unknown or not recognised as of any
weight in the balance of power. It cannot be, on our part, from closer neighbourhood;
for Russia, even at Constantinople, wouldcommercially and navally speakingbe
three times as distant? as New York from Great Britain. Nor on account of the greater
amount of the European commerce transacted by Russia. The commerce of the United
States with the countries of Europe is nearly as great in amount as that of the British
empire with the Continent; twice as large as the trade of France with the same
quarters; and three times that of Russia. It cannot be because of the more important
nature of the trade which we carry on with Russia as compared with that with
America, since the cotton of the latter gives employment and subsistence to more than
a million of our people, and is actually indispensable to our commercial and political
existence. Here are cogent reasons why the trans-Atlantic power should form a party
to the union of Stateswhy, at least, it should, in place of an empire situated upon the
Baltic or Black Sea, be united in political bands with Great Britain. And wherefore is
this rich, commercial, and this contiguous countrywith a population more entirely
enlightened than any besides, and whose improvements and institutions England and
all Europe are eager to emulatean alien to the balancing system, of which Turkey,
Spain, and Persia are members? It would be difficult to find any other satisfactory
answer than that which we are able to give as the reason of this exclusion: America,
with infinite wisdom, refuses to be a party to the balance of power.
Washington (who could remember when the national debt of England was under fifty-
five millions; who saw it augmented, by the Austrian war of succession, to seventy-
eight millions; and again increased, by the seven years war, to one hundred and forty-
six millions; and who lived to behold the first fruits of the French revolutionary wars,
with probably a presentiment of the harvest of debt and oppression that was to
followwhose paternal eye looked abroad only with the patriotic hope of finding in
the conduct of other nations example or warning for the instruction of his
countrymen), seeing the chimerical objects for which England, although an island,
plunged into the contentions of the Continent, with no other result to her suffering
people but an enduring and increasing debtbequeathed, as a legacy to his fellow-
citizens, the injunction, that they should never be tempted by any inducements or
provocations to become parties to the States system of Europe. And faithfully,
zealously, and happily has that testament been obeyed! Down even to our day the
feeling and conviction of the people, and consequently of the Government and the
authors? of the United States, have constantly increased in favour of a policy from
which so much wealth, prosperity, and moral greatness have sprung. America, for
fifty years at peace, with the exception of two years of defensive war, is a spectacle of
the beneficent effects of that policy which may be comprised in the maximAs little
intercourse as possible betwixt the Governments, as much connection as possible
between the nations of the world. And when England (without being a republic) shall
be governed upon the same principles of regard for the interests of the people, and a
like common sense view of the advantages of its position, we shall adopt a similar
motto for our policy; and then we shall hear no more mention of that costly chimera,
the balance of power.
CHAPTER IV
Protection Of Commerce
We began the preceding remarks upon a question which, however universally
recognised in former times, has now almost fallen into neglect, by quoting a passage
from the last speech of King William III. to his Parliament; andbefore proceeding
to discuss that other, but still more popular, pretence for wars and standing
armaments, the protection of our commercewe shall give an extract or two from the
latest (though we sincerely hope not the last) address of William IV. to his Reformed
Parliament, delivered on the 4th of February, 1836:
I continue to receive from my allies, and, generally, from all foreign powers,
assurances of their unaltered desire to cultivate with me those friendly relations which
it is equally my wish to maintain with them; and the intimate union which happily
subsists between this country and France is a pledge to Europe for the continuation of
general peace.
After the above passage, which contains, one would suppose, ample guarantees
against warsince it not only conveys assurances of the peaceful disposition of all
foreign powers towards this country, but adds, by way of making those assurances
doubly sure, that the union which happily subsists between England and France is a
pledge for the continuance of a general peacecomes the following:
The necessity of maintaining the maritime strength of the country, and of giving
adequate protection to the extended commerce of my subjects, has occasioned some
increase in the estimates for the naval branch of the public service.
Now, if we felt some difficulty in apprehending the question of the balancing
principle, we confess ourselves to be much more at a loss to understand what is here
meant by the protection of commerce through an increase in the navy estimates. Our
commerce is, in other words, our manufactures; and the first inquiry which occurs
necessarily is, Do we need an augmentation of the naval force, in order to guard our
ingenious artisans and industrious labourers, or to protect those precious results of
their mechanical genius, the manufactories of our capitalists? This apprehension
vanishes, if we refer to the assurances held out in the above double guarantee for the
continuance of peace, that our shores are safe from foreign aggression. The next idea
that suggests itself is, Does piracy increase the demand for vessels of war? We, who
write in the centre of the largest export trade in the world, have not heard of even one
complaint of violence done to British interests upon the ocean; and probably there are
not to be found a dozen freebooters upon the face of the aquatic globe. South America
demands no addition to the force upon its coasts at the present moment, when those
several Governments are more firmly organised, and foreign interests consequently
more secure, than at any previous period. China presents no excuse; for her policy is,
fortunately for her territorial integrity, invulnerable to foreign attempts at
intervention. The rest of Asia is our own. Where, then, shall we seek for a solution
of the difficulty, or how account for the necessity which called for the increase of our
naval strength?
The commerce of this country, we repeat, is, in other words, its manufactures. Our
exports do not consist, as in Mexico or Brazil, of the produce of our soil and our
mines; or, as in France and the United States, of a mixture of articles of agricultural
and manufacturing origin: but they may be said to be wholly produced by the skill and
industry of the manufacturing population of the United Kingdom.? Upon the
prosperity, then, of this interest, hangs our foreign commerce; on which depends our
external rank as a maritime state; our customs duties, which are necessary to the
payment of the national debt; and the supply of every foreign article of our domestic
consumptionevery pound of tea, sugar, coffee, or rice, and all the other
commodities consumed by the entire population of these realms. In a word, our
national existence is involved in the well-doing of our manufacturers. If our
readersmany of whom will be of the agricultural class, but every one of them
nevertheless equally interested in the questionshould ask, as all intelligent and
reasoning minds ought to do, To what are we indebted for this commerce?we
answer, in the name of every manufacturer and merchant of the kingdomThe
cheapness alone of our manufactures. Are we asked, How is this trade protected, and
by what means can it be enlarged? The reply still is, By the cheapness of our
manufactures. Is it inquired how this mighty industry, upon which depends the
comfort and existence of the whole empire, can be torn from us?we rejoin, Only by
the greater cheapness of the manufactures of another country. These truths are, we
presume, well known to the Government of Great Britain; at least, one member of the
present cabinet is vigilantly alive to their momentous character, as we are going to
show, by referring to a fact coming within our personal experience, and which bears
pointedly upon the question in hand.
The Directors of the Chamber of Commerce of Manchester (of which board the
author has the honour of being a member) were favoured, a short time since, with a
communication from the Right Hon. C. P. Thomson, accompanied by an assortment
of samples of various fabrics, which, in the diligent fulfilment of his official duties, he
had caused to be procured from the several manufacturing districts of the Continent;
and requesting a report as to the comparative relation which, after due examination,
they might be found to bear towards the manufactures of England. Among these were
patterns of Swiss Turkey-red chintz prints and of mixed cotton and linen Saxony
drillsboth of which commodities have been for some time sold in those
quarterssuperior, both in cheapness and quality, to similar articles produced in this
country: and, consequently, in reporting to the Board of Trade, the Directors of the
Chamber of Commerce had the disagreeable duty of stating that, in those particular
products of the loom and printing machine, we were beaten by our foreign rivals, and
superseded in third or neutral markets. The causes of the advantage thus possessed
over us by our competitors on the Continent, and which were pointed out to the
attention of the Right Hon. President, are the heavy imposts still fettering our
manufacturing energies, and the greater cost of the food of our workmen: the remedy
is, obviously, a reduction of the duties on corn, oil, soap, &c. But, if, instead of
naming such causes and remedies as these, the Manchester Chamber of Commerce
had stated in its report that the prints of Switzerland and the drills of Saxony (the
governments of which two countries do not together own a ship of war, as we believe)
were cheaper than the like articles fabricated here, because the British navy was not
sufficiently strong, and had advised for relief that half a million a year should be
added to the navy estimateswould not a writ de lunatico inquirendo have justly
been issued against those intelligent Directors, the writer's colleagues, without further
evidence of their insanity! Yet, having seen that the only way in which we can protect
our commerce is the cheapness of our manufactures, what other object can be meant,
when the Government calls for an augmentation of the navy, with a view to the
protection of our commerce, but some plan, however inappreciable to common minds,
for reducing the expenditure of the country, and thereby relieving us from some of the
burdensome imposts with which our race of competition is impeded?
But there is, in the second passage which we have just quoted from his Majesty's
speech, a part which tends to throw more light upon the wholewhere it refers to the
necessity of giving adequate protection to the extended commerce of the country.
By which we are to infer that it is the principle of the government that the extension
of our trade with foreign countries demands for its protection a corresponding
augmentation of the royal navy. This, we are aware, was the policy of the last century,
during the greater part of which the motto, Ships, Colonies, and Commerce,? was
borne upon the national escutcheon, became the watchword of statesmen, and was the
favourite sentiment of public writers; but this, which meant, in other wordsMen of
war to conquer colonies, to yield us a monopoly of their trade, must now be
dismissed, like many other equally glittering but false adages of our forefathers, and
in its place we must substitute the more homely, but enduring maximCheapness,
which will command commerce; and whatever else is needful will follow in its train.
At a time when all beyond the precincts of Europe was colonial territory, and when
the trade of the world was, with the exception of China, almost wholly forced into
false channels, by the hand of violence, which was no sooner withdrawn than, by its
own inherent lawthe law of natureit again sought its proper level course, the
increase of the navy necessarily preceded and accompanied an extension of our
commerce. The policy of nations, then, if judged by the standard which we apply to
the conduct of individuals nowand there can be no exculpation in multitudinous
immoralitywas, to waylay their customers, whom they first knocked down and
disabled, and afterwards dragged into their stores and compelled to purchase whatever
articles they chose to offer, at such prices as they chose to ask! The independence of
the New World has for ever put an end to the colonial policy of the Old, and with it
that system of fraud and violence which for centuries characterised the commercial
intercourse of the two hemispheres. And in that portentous truth, the Americas
arefree, teeming as it does with future change, there is nothing that more nearly
affects our destiny than the total revolution which it dictates to the statesmen of Great
Britain, in the commercial, colonial,? and foreign policy of our Government. America
is once more the theatre upon which nations are contending for mastery: it is not,
however, a struggle for conquest, in which the victor will acquire territorial
dominionthe fight is for commercial supremacy, and the battle will be won by the
cheapest!
Whilst our trade rested upon our foreign dependencies, as was the case in the middle
of the last centurywhilst, in other words, force and violence were necessary to
command customers for our manufacturesit was natural and consistent that almost
every king's speech should allude to the importance of protecting the commerce of the
country, by means of a powerful navy; but whilst, under the present more honest
principles of trade, cheapness alone is necessary to command free and independent
purchasers, and to protect our commerce, it must be evident that such armaments as
impose the smallest possible tax upon the cost of our commodities must be the best
adapted for the protection of our trade. But, besides dictating the disuse of warlike
establishments, free trade (for of that beneficent doctrine we are speaking) arms its
votaries by its own pacific nature, in that eternal truththe more any nation traffics
abroad upon free and honest principles, the less it will be in danger of wars.
If, by way of example, we refer to the present commercial intercourse between the
United States and this empire, how completely does it illustrate the force of the above
maxim! At no period of history were two people, aliens to each other by birth,
government, laws, and institutions, united indissolubly by one common interest and
mutual dependence, like these distant nations. One-third? of our whole exports
consists of cotton manufactures, the raw material of which is produced from the soil
of the United States. More than a million of our population depend upon the due
supply of this cotton wool for the labour of every succeeding day, and for the regular
payment of their weekly wages. We sometimes hear objections against the free
importation of corn, made on the ground that we should become dependent upon
foreigners for bread; but here we have a million of people, whose power of
purchasing not only bread, but meat, ay, or even potatoes, as well as clothing, is
supplied from the annual growth of lands possessed by an independent nation, more
than three thousand miles off. The equilibrium of this stupendous industry is
preserved by the punctual arrival from the United States of a quantity of raw cotton,
averaging 15,000 bales weekly, or more than 2,000 bales a day; and it depends also
upon the equally constant weekly departure of more than a quarter of a million
sterling worth of cotton goods, exported to foreign parts. Now, what precaution is
taken by the Government of this country to guard and regulate this precious flood of
traffic? How many of those costly vessels of war, which are maintained at an expense
to the nation of many millions of pounds annually, do our readers suppose, are
stationed at the mouths of the Mersey and Clyde, to welcome and convoy into
Liverpool and Glasgow the merchant ships from New York, Charleston, or New
Orleans, all bearing the inestimable freight of cotton wool, upon which our
commercial and social existence depends? Not one! What portion of our standing
army, costing seven millions a year, is occupied in defending this more than
Pactolusthis golden stream of trade, on which floats not only the wealth, but the
hopes and existence of a great community? Four invalids at the Perch Rock Battery
hold the sinecure office of defending the port of Liverpool! But our exports to the
United States will reach this year, perhaps, in real or declared value, more than ten
millions sterling, and nearly one half of this amount goes to New York:what
portion of the Royal navy is stationed off that port to protect our merchants ships and
cargoes? The appearance of a King's ship at New York is an occurrence of such rarity
as to attract the especial notice of the public journals; whilst, all along the entire
Atlantic coast of the United Statesextending, as it does, more than 3,000 miles, to
which we send a quarter of our whole yearly exportsthere are stationed two? British
ships of only, and these two have also their stations at the West Indies.
No! this commerce, unparalleled in magnitude, between two remote nations, demands
no armament as its guide or safeguard; nature itself is both. And will one rational
mind recognise the possibility of these two communities putting a sudden stop to such
a friendly traffic, and, contrary to every motive of self-interest, encountering each
other as enemies? Such a rupture would be more calamitous to England than the
sudden drying up of the river Thames; and more intolerable to America than the
cessation of sunshine and rain over the entire surface of one of her maritime states?
And if such is the character of free trade (or, in other words, all trade between
independent nations), that it unites, by the strongest motives of which our nature is
susceptible, two remote communities, rendering the interest of the one the only true
policy of the other, and making each equally anxious for the prosperity and happiness
of both; and if, moreover, every addition to the amount of traffic between two
independent States forges fresh fetters, which rivet more securely these amicable
bondshow can the extension of our commerce call for an increase in our
armaments, or how can a Government stand excused from the accusation of
imposture, unless by the plea of ignorance, when it calls for an augmentation of the
navy estimates, under the pretence of protecting our extended commerce?
But, to put this matter in another point of view, let us suppose that this mighty traffic
between England and the United States, which is wholly governed by the talismanic
law of cheapness, were suddenly interrupted, in the only way in which it can be
disturbedby some other people producing cheaper hardware, woollens, pottery, etc.,
to whom the Americans, guided solely by that self-interest which controls alike the
commerce of every nation, could sell their cotton for a greater amount of those
manufactures in returncould our Royal navy, were it even augmented to tenfold its
present monstrous force, protect us from the loss of our commerce? To answer this
question, we need only appeal to the experience of facts, to be found at this time
operating in another quarter.
At the moment when we write the British naval force stationed in the Mediterranean
amounts to thirty-six vessels of war,? mounting altogether 1,320 guns, being rather
more than a third of the death-dealing metal afloat in our King's ships. Our entire
trade to all the nations bordering on this sea, and including the whole of that with
Spain and France, amounts to very nearly the same as our exports to the United
States; in value or importance, however, it is not equal to the latter. Now, leaving for
the present the question of the profitableness of carrying on a traffic with such heavy
protecting expenses annexed, let us proceed to ascertain whether or not this
prodigious and costly navy affords an efficient protection to our commerce in those
quarters. The reader will bear in mind our statement, that the Chamber of Commerce
of Manchester had the unpleasant task of reporting to the Board of Trade that the drill
manufacturers of Saxony and the calico printers of Switzerland had superseded goods
of the same descriptions, made in England, in third or neutral markets. Those markets
were in the Mediterranean! This is not all. One of those markets, from which our
manufacturers were reported to have been expelled, by a decree of far more potency
than was penned by the hand of violence at Berlin and Milan, and prohibited by an
interdict ten times more powerful than ever sprang from the Prussian leaguethe
interdict of dearness; one of those markets was Gibraltar!! (We promised, a few
pages back, to prove that the industrious middling and working classes of this empire
have no interest in the violent and unjust seizure and retention of an integral portion
of the Spanish territory; and we have, in this simple fact, redeemed our pledge.) We
give it to the reflecting portion of our readers, as a truth authenticated by the very best
authority, and worthy of deep attention from the economist, the statesman, and the
advocate of peace and of a moral ascendency over physical forcethat the artisans of
Switzerland and of Saxony have achieved a victory over the manufacturers of
England, upon her own fortressthe free port of Gibraltar! We kiss the rod we
dote upon this fact, which teaches, through us, a lesson to mankind, of the inefficacy
of brute violence in the trading concerns of the world. Let us pause, then, to
recapitulate our facts. On the one hand, behold a commerce with America, amounting
to a quarter of the whole trade of the kingdomupon which depends, from week to
week, the subsistence of a million of people, and whereon rests our very existence as
a commercial empireconducted regularly, day by day, without the aid or
intervention of ships of war to guide or coerce it; on the other, an armament,
avowedly to protect our commerce, of 1,320 cannon, unable to guard our
manufactures against the successful cheapness of the poorest, the weakest, and
humblest community of the Continenta community destitute of fleets, and without a
standing army. The inference is plainwe have succeeded in establishing our
premises; for, having proved that the (physically speaking) impregnable fortress of
Gibraltar, with its triple lines of batteries, aided by thirty-six vessels of war, and
altogether combining a greater quantity of artillery than was put in requisition to gain
the victory of Waterloo, Trafalgar, or the Nile, surrenders our commerce into the
hands of the Swiss and Saxons, unable to protect us against the cheaper commodities
of those countrieswe need not go further to show, since these two countries without
navies are our witnesses of the facts, that armed fleets, armies, and fortresses, are not
essential to the extension of commerce, and that they do not possess the power of
protecting it against the cheapness of rivals. These may appear trite and familiar truths
to our intelligent readers; our justification may be found, if needed, in the fact, that the
Government has demanded and obtained an addition to our navy estimates, this
session of Parliament, amounting to nearly half a million sterling per annum, under
the pretence of protecting our commerce; and we do not recollect that one of our
representatives rose from his seat to tell the minister, as we now tell him, that his is
that kind of protection which the eagle affords to the lambcovering it to devour it.
It will be seen that all which has been stated bears indirectly, but conclusively, upon
the question of Russia and Turkey, and affords an unanswerable argument against
going to war to defend our commerce by means of naval armaments; since it is plain,
from the example of Gibraltar, that, even were Constantinople in our own power, its
commerce could be retained only by our selling cheaper than other nations; whilst,
supposing it to be in the possession of Russia or any other people, the cheapness of
our commodities will eventually command that market, in the same manner as the
cheap drills and prints of Saxony and Switzerland supplant our goods, in spite of the
batteries and fleets which defend our Spanish fortress.
Having thus shown that cheapness, and not the cannon or the sword, is the weapon
through which alone we possess and can hope to defend or extend our
commercehaving proved, also, that an increase of trade, so far from demanding an
augmentation of warlike armaments, furnishes an increased safeguard against the
chances of waris it not clear that, to diminish the taxes and duties which tend to
enhance the cost of our manufactures, by a reduction of our navy? and army, is the
obvious policy of a ministry which understands and desires to promote the true
interests of this commercial nation? Were our army and navy reduced to one-half of
their present forces, and the amount saved applied to the abolition of the duties upon
cotton, wool, glass, paper, oil, soap, drugs, and the thousand other ingredients of our
manufactures, such a step would do more towards protecting and extending the
commerce of Great Britain than an augmentation of the naval armaments to fifty
times their present strength, even supposing such an increase could be effected with
no addition to the national burdens.
Experience has shown that an overwhelming power at sea, whilst it cannot dictate a
favourable commercial treaty with the smallest independent State (for such a
spectacle of violence was never seen as a victorious admiral, sword in hand,
prescribing the terms of a tariff to his prostrate foe), has had the effect of rousing
national fear, hatred, and envy, in the breasts of foreigners; and these vile feelings of
human nature, awakened and cultivated by our own appeal to the mere instinct of
brute force, have been naturally directed, in every possible way, to thwart and injure
our trade. During the latter half of the French revolutionary wars, England, owing to
successive victories, became the mistress of the ocean; her flag floated triumphantly
over every navigable parallel of latitude, and her merchants and manufacturers
commanded a monopoly of the markets of the globe. For a period of more than ten
years an enemy's ship was scarcely to be seen, unless as a fugitive from the thunder of
our vessels of war; no neutrals were allowed to pass along that thoroughfare of
nations, the ocean, without submitting to pay the homage to British power of
undergoing the humiliation of a search by our cruisers. There was something
inconceivably flattering to the vulgar mind in this exhibition of successful violence.
Our naval supremacy, consequently, became the theme and watchword of all those
orators, statesmen, and writers who had an interest in perpetuating the war. Poets, too,
were put in requisition; and a thousand songs, all breathing such sentiments as Rule
Britannia, were heard in the theatres, taverns, and streets. Cupidity, as well as pride,
was appealed to. Our merchants were continually reminded, by the minister and his
minions, that they alone possessed the markets of the world; and, even whilst our
yearly national expenditure reached nearly double the amount of the whole of our
exports, such was the intoxication, such the infatuation of the moment, owing to the
gross appeals made to national vanity, that the multitude were not only impressed
with the belief that our commerce was profitable, but convinced that England was
destined to remain permanently the same trading monopolist. Peace cured us of this
maddening fever; but, in exchange, it brought the lumbago of debt, which still
oppresses and torments our body politic. Not only this; the moral is yet to follow. The
brute force which we had exercised towards foreign nations, at sea, during the war,
had naturally excited the animal feelings of hatred, fear, and revenge, in return. Every
country began to establish manufactures, in order to become independent of and
secure against Great Britain. Russia, Austria, and France, now commenced the war of
interdicts; and Ferdinand of Spain? had no sooner succeeded in re-establishing the
Inquisition, than hefor whom, to the everlasting infamy of that epoch of our history,
the blood and treasure of England were squanderedrepaid us with a prohibition of
our cottons.
We cannot give proofs of the motives which actuate the councils of despotic princes,
for they furnish none to the world; but the discussions on the tariff laws in France and
the United States, which were necessarily public, fully disclosed that the reason which
led their governments to seek to become themselves manufacturers, was to render
those countries independent of the power of Great Britain at sea. The French nation,
which, in 1786 had concluded a treaty of commerce with Great Britain upon terms
very favourable to the latter, and which would, had it not been interrupted by war,
have consolidated the two countries by a complete identification of interests, long
before the period we are now speaking of, proceeded, immediately on the close of
hostilities, to prohibit the introduction of every article of our manufacture. The spirit
which operated then is still alive, and with the avowal of the self-same motives; for,
during the late discussions in the Chamber of Deputies? upon the revisal of the tariff,
a discriminating duty was laid upon the coal coming from this country (by the
unprecedented scheme of dividing France into three zones for that very purpose), and
it was defended upon the plea of protection against inconvenience during war!
America, however, presents us with the severest lesson, as the moral of that policy
which relies upon violence and war for the support or acquisition of commerce. In the
report of the committee on manufactures of cotton, presented in the Congress of the
United States, February 13, 1816a paper drawn up with great moderation and
delicacy, so far as relates to the allusions to British violence during the war just
concludedit is stated that, Prior to the years 1806 and 1807, establishments for
manufacturing cotton wool had not been attempted but in a few instances, and on a
limited scale. Their rise and progress are attributable to embarrassments to which
commerce was subjected; which embarrassments originated in causes not within the
control of human prudence. The causes here alluded to are the British orders in
council and Bonaparte's decrees. Then follows a statement of the quantity of cotton
wool manufactured at successive periods in the United States:
1800 . . . . . . . 500 bales.
1805 . . . . . . . 1,000 bales.
1810 . . . . . . . 10,000 bales.
1815 . . . . . . . 90,000 bales.
And afterwards it goes on to say, in speaking of Great BritainNo improper motives
are intended to be imputed to that government. But does not experience teach a lesson
that should never be forgotten, that governments, like individuals, are apt to feel
power and forget right? It is not inconsistent with national decorum to become
circumspect and prudent. May not the Government of Great Britain be inclined, in
analysing the basis of her political power, to consider and regard the United States as
her rival, and to indulge an improper jealousy, the enemy of peace and repose? And,
in proposing on February 12, 1816, a new tariff to the Senate, in which cotton goods
are subjected to 331/3 per cent. duty, the Secretary of the Treasury, in the course of
his report, has this passage:But it was emphatically during the period of the
restrictive system and of the war that the importance of domestic manufactures
became conspicuous to the nations, and made a lasting impression upon the mind of
every statesman and every patriot. It is not, however, by state papers that we can
fully estimate the sentiments of the nation at large. Immediately on the cessation of
war a strong feeling was manifested in all parts of the Union in favour of protecting
the manufactures of the country. This feeling prevailed with the democratic party,
which was then in the ascendant, quite as much as with the federalists, although the
former had previously been opposed to protecting duties. We cannot better illustrate
this than by giving the following extract from a letter, written at this time by the great
leader and champion of that party, Jefferson, who, in his Notes on Virginia, written
in 1785, had given his opinion, that the workshops of Europe are the most proper to
furnish the supplies of manufactures to the United States; but, after the experience of
the war, changed his opinion to the following:The British interdicted to our
vessels all harbours of the globe, without they had at first proceeded to some one of
hers, there paid tribute proportioned to their cargo, and obtained a licence to proceed
to the port of their destination. Compare this state of things with that of 1785, and say
whether an opinion, founded in the circumstances of that day, can be fairly applied to
those of the present. We have experienced what we did not then believe, that there
does exist both profligacy and power enough to exclude the United States from the
field of intercourse with foreign nations. We therefore have a right to conclude, that to
be independent for the comforts of life we must fabricate them for ourselves. We must
now place the manufacturer by the side of the agriculturist. The question of 1785 is
suppressed, or rather assumes a new form. The question is, Shall we manufacture our
own comforts, or go without them at the will of a foreign nation? He, therefore, who
is now against domestic manufactures, must be for reducing us to a dependence upon
foreign nations. I am not one of these.
We have illustrated this matter with reference to the United States more clearly than
in relation to France, because, as we have elsewhere stated, it is our conviction, after
giving considerable attention to the subject, that future danger to our manufacturing
and commercial supremacy impends from America rather than from any European
nation. It will be seen from the preceding quotations, that from the first independence
of that country, the democratic party was inimical to the establishing of protective
duties; that party, under Jefferson, then was, and down to this day it continues to be
triumphant; and we therefore possess unquestionable evidence that, by the hand of
violence of England herself in 1806 and subsequently, the cotton manufacture was
planted in the United States; and it may be seen, in the foregoing table, how, watered
by the blood of our succeeding ten years French war, it flourished an hundred and
eighty fold! That manufacture is not destined to perish; it now equals the fifth of our
own staple industry. We do not predict such a retributive visitation; we are proof
against despair, when the energies of our countrymen are the grounds of hope; but if,
in consequence of past wastefulness, or future extravagance and misgovernment here,
a people beyond the Atlantic, free of debt, resolute in peacefulness, and of severe
economy, should wrest, by the victory of cheapness, that main prop of our national
prosperity, the cotton manufacture, from our handshow greatly will it aggravate a
nation's sufferings, to remember the bitter historical truth, that that people was goaded
to the occupations of the spinning-jenny and the loom by the violence of Great Britain
herself!
We mention these facts for the purpose of appealing, on a fresh ground, against the
policy of maintaining enormous standing armaments. It has been seen that armies and
ships cannot protect or extend commerce; whilst, as is too well known, the expenses
of maintaining them oppress and impede our manufacturing industrytwo sufficient
grounds for reducing both. There is another motive in the above facts. That feeling
which was awakened by our overwhelming power at sea, at the conclusion of the
warthe feeling of fear and mistrust lest we should be, in the words of the American
state paper, just quoted, apt to feel power and forget rightis kept alive by the
operation of the same cause, which tends still, as we have seen by the last debates in
the French Chamber of Deputies, to afford excuses for perpetuating the restrictive
duties upon our fabrics. The standing armies and navies, therefore, whilst they cannot
possibly protect our commercewhilst they add, by the increase of taxation, to the
cost of our manufactures, and thus augment the difficulty of achieving the victory of
cheapnesstend to deter rather than attract customers. The feeling is natural; it is
understood in the individual concerns of life. Does the shopkeeper, when he invites
buyers to his counter, place there, as a guard to protect his stock or defend his
salesmen from violence, a gang of stout fellows, armed with pistols and cutlasses?
There is a vague apprehension of danger to our shores experienced by some writers,
who would not feel safe unless with the assurance that the ports of England contained
ships of war ready at all times to repel an attempt at invasion. This feeling arises from
a narrow and imperfect knowledge of human nature, in supposing that another people
shall be found sufficiently void of perception and reflectionin short, sufficiently
void of perception and reflectionin short, sufficiently madto assail a stronger and
richer empire, merely because the retributive injury, thereby inevitably entailed upon
themselves, would be delayed a few months by the necessary preparation of the
instruments of chastisement. Such are the writers by whom we have been told that
Russia was preparing an army of 50,000 men, to make a descent upon Great Britain to
subjugate a population of twenty-five millions! Those people do not in their
calculations award to mankind even the instinct of self-preservation which is given for
the protection of the brute creation. The elephant is not for ever brandishing his trunk,
the lion closes his mouth and conceals his claws, and the deadly dart of the reptile is
only protruded when the animal is enraged; yet we do not find that the weaker
tribesthe goats, the deer, or the foxesare given to assaulting those masters of the
forest in their peaceful moods.
If that which constitutes cowardice in individuals, viz., the taking of undue and
excessive precautions against danger, merits the same designation when practised by
communitiesthen England certainly must rank as the greatest poltroon among
nations. With twenty-five millions of the most robust, the freest, the richest, and most
united population of Europeenclosed within a smaller area than ever before
contained so vast a number of inhabitantsplaced upon two islands, which, for
security, would have been chosen before any spot on earth, by the commander
seeking for a Torres Vedras to contain his hostand with the experience of seven
hundred years of safety, during which period no enemy has set foot upon their
shoresyet behold the government of Great Britain maintaining mighty armaments,
by sea and land, ready to repel the assaults of imaginary enemies! There is no greater
obstacle to cheap and good government than this feeling of danger, which has been
created and fostered for the very purpose of misgovernment.?
Instead of pandering to this unworthy passion, every journalist and public writer
ought to impress upon the people of these realms, that, neither from the side of
Russia, nor from any other quarter, is this industrious, orderly, moral, and religious
community threatened; that it is only from decay and corruption within, and not from
external foes, that a nation of twenty-five millions of free peoplespeaking one
language, identified by habits, traditions, and institutions, governed by like laws,
owning the same monarch, and placed upon an insular territory of less than 100,000
square milescan ever be endangered. History, as we have before remarked, affords
no example of a great empiresuch, for instance, as Prussiaconsolidated,
enlightened, and moral, falling a prey to barbarous invaders. But the British Empire,
with more than double the population and twenty times the wealth, possesses in the
sea-girt nature of its situation, a thousand times the security of Prussia. To attempt to
augment such a measure of safety by oppressive armaments, by land and seais it the
part of wisdom and prudence, or of improvidence and folly?
But to return to that course of inquiry from which our argument has slightly swerved.
We recur to the subject of protecting our commerce by armed ships; and it becomes
necessary next to examine, whether, even supposing our naval force could defend our
trade against the attacks of rivals (which we have conclusively proved it cannot), the
cost of its protection does not, in some cases, more than absorb the gain of such
traffic. The real or declared value of all the British manufactures and other produce
exported to the Mediterranean, including the coast of Africa and the Black Sea, will
this year amount to about 9,500,000. Under the groundless plea of protecting this
commerce, we find, from the United Service Journal of June 1st, that a naval
armament, mounting more than 1,300 guns, being upwards of a third of the national
force, is stationed within the Straits of Gibraltar. Taking the annual cost of the entire
British navy at five millions, if we apportion a third part of this amount, and add the
whole cost of the fortifications and garrisons of the Mediterranean, with their
contingents at the war office, ordnance, etc., we shall be quite safe and within the
mark, in estimating that our yearly expenditure in guarding the commerce of this sea,
amounts to upwards of three millions sterling, or one-third of our exports to those
quarters. Now, what kind of a business would a wholesale dealer or merchant
pronounce it, were his traveller's expenses, for escort alone, to come to 6s. 8d.? in the
pound on the amount of his sales! Yet this is precisely the unprofitable character of
our yearly trade to the Mediterranean. Most people approach the investigation of a
nation's affairs with the impression that they do not come under the same laws of
common sense and homely wisdom by which private concerns are governedthan
which nothing can be more erroneous. America, which carries on a traffic one-half as
extensive as Great Britain, with only a sixth of our navy expenses, and with no
charge for maintaining colonies or garrisons, is every year realising a profit to her
people beyond that of her extravagant rival, in proportion to her more economical
establishments; just exactly in the same way that the merchant or shopkeeper who
conducts his business at a less cost for rent, clerks, etc., will, at each stock-taking, find
his balance-sheet more favourable than that of his less frugal competitor. And the
result will be in the one case as in the otherthat the cheaper management will
produce cheaper commodities; which, in the event, will give a victory, in every
market, to the more prudent trader.
But if, instead of the Mediterranean generally, we apply this test to an individual
nation situated on that sea, we shall be able to illustrate the matter more plainly. In the
same work from which we have before quoted, we find it stated that there are (June
1st) thirteen British ships of war lying at Lisbon, carrying 372 guns; a force about
equal to the whole American navyemployed in protecting the interests of that
commercial people all over the world! That part of our annual navy estimates which
goes to support this amount of guns, with contingent expenses fairly proportioned,
will reach about 700,000. Turning to M'Culloch's Commercial Dictionary (article,
Oporto), we find that the declared value of exports of British manufactures and
produce to the entire kingdom of Portugal, reached in 1831 (the latest year we have at
this moment access to), 975,991. Here then we find, even allowing for increase, the
escort costing nearly as much as the amount sold. In a word, Portugal is, at this
moment, paying us at the rate of 500,000 a year clear and dead loss! Our commerce
with that country, on this 1st June, was precisely of the same ruinous character to the
British nation as it would be in the case of an individual trader who turned over
twenty thousand a year, and whose expenses in clerks, watchmen, rents, etc., were
15,000. If anything could add to the folly of such conductconduct which, if proved
against an individual brought before an insolvent debtors tribunal would be enough
to consign him to prisonit is, to recollect that no part of such a nautical force can
possibly be of the slightest service to our trade with Portugal, which is wholly
independent of such coercion. Even our foreign secretarya functionary who, during
the last hundred and fifty years, has travelled abroad for this commercial empire with
no other result to the national ledger but eight hundred millions of bad debtshas, we
are happy to see, discovered this truth; for, on being questioned by Mr. Robinson in
the House,? as to a recent grateful augmentation of duties upon British goods,
amounting to 14 per cent., by the Government of Lisbon, our present foreign
secretary, Lord Palmerston, avowed that the Portuguese were free to put whatever
restraints they chose upon our trade with their country; and he merely threatened, if
the tariff was not satisfactory, that he would attack themhow do our readers
suppose?with the thunder of our ships in the Tagus?with soldiers and
sailors?with grape, musketry, shot, shell, and rocket?all of which we provide for
the protection of our commerce? Nowith retaliatory duties!
To proceed to a worse case. On the 1st June, our naval force, on the West India station
(see United Service Journal), amounted to 29 vessels, carrying 474 guns, to protect a
commerce just exceeding two millions per annum. This is not all. A considerable
military force is kept up in those islands, which, with its contingent of home expenses
at the War Office, Ordnance Office, etc., must also be put to the debit of the same
account. Add to which, our civil expenditure, and the charges at the Colonial Office
on behalf of the West Indies; and we find, after due computation, that our whole
expenditure, in governing and protecting the trade of those islands, exceeds,
considerably, the total amount of their imports of our produce and manufactures. Our
case here is no better than that of Jenkins and Sons, or Jobson and Co., or any other
firm, whose yearly returns are less than the amount of their expenses for travellers,
clerks, etc.; and if the British Empire escapes the ruin which, at the close of the year,
must inevitably befall those improvident traders, it is only because we have other
markets and resourcesthe Americas, and Asia, and the productive industry of these
islandsto draw upon, to cover the annual loss sustained by our West India
possessions (?)
Or, for another parallel case, let our readers suppose that a Yarmouth house engaged
in the herring trade were to maintain, besides the fishermen who with their boats and
nets were employed in catching the fish, as many yachts, full of well-dressed lookers
on, as should cost a sum equal to the value of all the herrings caught. That house
would, at the end of the year, have sacrificed the whole of the money paid for the
labour of the fishermen, besides the interest and wear and tear of the capital in boats,
nets, etc. This is precisely the situation of our commerce with the West Indies at this
moment. The British nationthe productive classespay in taxation as much in
proportion to support well-dressed lookers-on in ships of war, garrisons, and civil
offices, as their goods sell for to the West Indians. And, consequently, the whole
amount expended for wages and material, together with the wear and tear of
machinery, and loss of capital incurred in making cottons, woollens, etc., besides the
hire of merchants ships and seamen to convey the merchandise to market, is
irredeemably lost to the tax-payers of this country.? Here is a plain statement of the
case, and in America, where everything is subjected to the test of common sense, the
question would be at once determined by such an appeal to the homely wisdom of
every-day life. If in that country it could be shown that a traffic between New York
and Cuba to the yearly amount of ten millions of dollars was conducted at a cost to
the community of the same amount of taxation, it would be put down by one
unanimous cry of outraged prudence from Maine to Louisiana. And how long will it
be before the policy of the Government of this manufacturing and commercial nation
shall be determined by at least as much calculation and regard for self-interest as are
necessary to the prosperity of a private business? Not until such time as Englishmen
apply the same rules of common sense to the affairs of state that they do to their
individual undertakings. We will not stop to inquire of what use are those naval
armaments to protect a traffic with our own territory. It is customary, however, to hear
our standing army and navy defended as necessary for the protection of our colonies,
as though some other nation might otherwise seize them. Where is the enemy (?) that
would be so good as to steal such property? We should consider it to be quite as
necessary to arm in defence of our national debt!
Enough has been said to prove that even if armaments for the protection of commerce
could effect the object for which they are maintained (although we have shown the
false pretensions of the plea of defending our trade), still the cost of supporting these
safeguards may often be greater than the amount of profit gained. This argument
applies more immediately to Turkey and the East, upon which countries a share of
public attention has lately been bestowed far beyond the importance of their
commerce.? It would be difficult to apportion the precise quota of our ships of war,
which may be said to be at this moment maintained with a view to support our
influence or carry into effect the views of our Foreign Secretary in the affairs of
Constantinople. The late augmentation of the navythe most exceptionable vote
which has passed a reformed House of Commonsalthough accomplished by the
Ministry without explanation of its designs, further than the century-old pretence of
protecting our commerce,? was generally believed to have been aimed at Russia in the
Black Sea. Our naval force in the East was considerable previously; but taking only
the increase into calculation, it will cost more than three times the amount of the
current profits of our trade with Turkey, whilst it can show no prospective benefits,
since, even if we possessed Constantinople ourselves, we should only be able to
command its trade by selling, as at Gibraltar, cheaper than other people. Our nautical
establishments devoted to the (pretended) guardianship of British commercial
interests (for we can have no other description of interests a thousand miles off) in
Turkey are, the present year, costing the tax-payers of this country, upon the lowest
computation, more than three times the amount of the annual profit of our trade with
that country. Not content with this state of things, which leaves very little chance of
future gain, some writers and speakers would plunge us into a war with Russia, in
defence of Turkey, for the purpose of protecting this commerce, the result of which
would inevitably be, as in former examples of wars undertaken to defend Spain or
Portugal, that such an accumulation of expenses would ensue as to prevent the
possibility of the future profit upon our exports to the Ottoman empire even
amounting to so much as should discharge the yearly interest of the debt contracted in
its behalf.
We had intended and were prepared to give a summary of the wars, their causes and
commercial consequences, in which Great Britain has been during the last century and
a half from time to time engaged; but we are admonished that our limited space will
not allow us to follow out this design. It must suffice to offer as the moral of the
subject, that although the conflicts in which this country has during the last 150 years
involved itself have, as Sir Henry Parnell? has justly remarked, in almost every
instance been undertaken in behalf of our commerce, yet we hesitate not to declare
that there is no instance recorded in which a favourable tariff or a beneficial
commercial treaty has been extorted from an unwilling enemy at the point of the
sword. On the contrary, every restriction that embarrasses the trade of the whole
world, all existing commercial jealousies between nations, the debts that oppress the
countries of Europe, the incalculable waste owing to the misdirected labour and
capital of communities, these and a thousand other evils that are now actively
thwarting and oppressing commerce are all the consequences of wars. How shall a
profession which withdraws from productive industry the ablest of the human race,
and teaches them systematically the best modes of destroying mankind, which awards
honours only in proportion to the number of victims offered at its sanguinary altar,
which overturns cities, ravages farms and vineyards, uproots forests, burns the ripened
harvest, which, in a word, exists but in the absence of law, order, and security how
can such a profession be favourable to commerce, which increases only with the
increase of human life, whose parent is agriculture, and which perishes or flies at the
approach of lawless rapine? Besides, they who propose to influence by force the
traffic of the world, forget that affairs of trade, like matters of conscience, change
their very nature if touched by the hand of violence; for as faith, if forced, would no
longer be religion, but hypocrisy, so commerce becomes robbery if coerced by
warlike armaments.? If, then, war has in past times in no instance served the just
interests of commerce, whilst it has been the sole cause of all its embarrassments; if
for the future, when trade and manufactures are brought under the empire of
cheapness, it can still less protect, whilst its cost will yet more heavily oppress it;
and having seen that if war could confer a golden harvest of gain upon us instead of
this unmixed catalogue of evils it would still be not profit, but plunder; having
demonstrated these truths, surely we may hope to be spared a repetition of the
mockery offered to this commercial empire at the hands of its government and
legislature in the proposal to protect our commerce by an increase of the Royal navy!
On behalf of the trading world an indissoluble alliance is proclaimed with the cause of
peace, and if the unnatural union be again attempted of that daughter of Peace,
Commerce, whose path has ever been strewed with the choicest gifts of religion,
civilisation, and the arts, with the demon of carnage, War, loaded with the
maledictions of widows and orphans, reeking with the blood of thousands of
millions of victims, with feet fresh from the smoking ruins of cities, whose ears
delight in the groans of the dying, and whose eyes love to gloat upon the dead, if such
an unholy union be hereafter proposed, as the humblest of the votaries of that
commerce which is destined to regenerate and unite the whole world, we will forbid
the banns.
It was our intention, had space permitted it, to have proved, from facts which we had
prepared for the purpose, that no class or calling, of whatever rank in society, has ever
derived substantial or permanent advantage from war. The agriculturist, indeed, might
be supposed to be interested in that state of things which yielded an augmentation of
price for his produce, and so he might if hostilities were constant and eternal. But war
is at best but a kind of intermittent fever, and the cure or death of the patient must at
some time follow. This simile may be justly applied to the condition of the farmer
during the French wars and subsequently, at which former period, exposed to the
effects of the bank restriction, of enormous loans, and of paper issues, the pulsation of
prices sometimes alternated biennially, with dreadful consequences to the febrile
sufferer, the agriculturist. What management or calculation on the part of the farmer
could be proof against such fluctuations in the market, arising from continental battles
or the violence or wickedness of a powerful and corrupt government as we find when
wheat, which in 1798 averaged 2 10s. 3d. a quarter, had in 1800 reached 5 13s. 7d.,
and again sold in 1802 at 3 7s. 5d., a state of things which exposed the capitalist and
the adventurer, the prudent man and the gambler, to one common fate of suffering and
ruin? The dull and, to many, fatal peace brought a state of convalesence more
intolerable than the excitement of war. After more than twenty years of this latter
species of suffering the invalid is even now scarcely cured. Will he permit his wounds
to be re-opened merely that he may again undergo the self-same healing process? But
the great majority of agriculturists, the labourers, so far from deriving any advantages
from it, suffered grievously from the effects of that war which is sometimes excused
or palliated on account of the pretended benefits it conferred upon the landed
interest.
Whilst the prices of every commodity of food and clothing were rising, in
consequence of the depreciation of the currency and other causes incidental to the
state of war, the labourers earnings continued pretty much the same. The
consequence was that bread sometimes became a luxury, as is now the case in Ireland,
too dear for the English husbandman's resources; that the cruel salt-tax interposed a
barrier between him and that necessary of life which frequently compelled him, when
providing his winter's stock of provisions, to exchange one half of his pig for the
means of curing the other; that good beer rose to a price nearly as prohibitory to the
peasant's paiate as port wine; and that, owing to the high cost of clothing, he
possessed little more change of habiliments than the Russian serf of the present day.
What greater proof can be required that war prices conferred no blessings upon the
husbandmen than is afforded in the fact that the poor rates were the heaviest in the
agricultural districts at a time when wheat was at its highest market price? In a word,
at no period were the peasantry of this country enjoying so great an amount of
comforts as they possess at this time, and the primary cause of which is the twenty
years duration of peace.
Had we space to enter upon the statistics of ourtrade and manufactures, it would be
easily shown, by an appeal to a comparison of the bankruptcies in times of peace and
war; by reference to the past and present condition of our manufacturing districts, as
exemplified in the relative amounts of the poor rate, crime, and turbulence among the
working classes; and in the comparative prosperity of the capitalists and
employersthat these vital interests have no solid prosperity excepting in a time of
peace. We feel that there is little necessity for enlarging upon this point: the
manufacturing population do not require to be informed that they can derive no
benefit from wars. So firmly are they convinced of the advantages of peace, that we
venture to affirm in the behalf of every thinking man of this the most important body
in the kingdom (in reference to our external and commercial policy), that they will not
consent to a declaration of war in defence of the trade of Turkey,? or for any any other
object, except to repel an act of aggression upon ourselves.
A very small number of the ship-ownersmen who are sufficiently old to be able to
look back to the time when the British navy swept the seas of their rivalsentertain
an indistinct kind of hope that hostilities would, by putting down competition, again
restore to them a monopoly of the ocean. This impression can only exist in minds
ignorant altogether of the changes which have taken place in the world since the time
when the celebrated Orders in Council were issued, thirty years ago. The United
States, containing twice the population of that period, and the richest inhabitants in
the world, with a mercantile marine second in magnitude only to our own, and with a
government not only disburthened of debt, but inconveniently loaded with surplus
richesthe United States will never again submit, even for a day, to tyrannical
mandates levelled against their commerce at the hands of a British cabinet. The first
effects, then, of another European war, in which England shall become unwisely a
party, must be that America will profit at our expense, by grasping the carrying trade
of Europe; and the consequences which would, in all probability, ultimately follow,
are, that the manufacturing and trading prosperity of this empire will pass into the
hands of another peoplethe due reward of the peaceful wisdom of their government,
and the just chastisement of the warlike policy of our own.
We are, then, justified in the assertion that no class or calling of society can derive
permanent benefit from war. Even the aristocracy, which, from holding all the offices
of the State, profited exclusively by the honours and emoluments arising from past
hostilities, would derive no advantages from future conflicts. The governing power is
now wholly transferred to the hands of the middling class; and, although time may be
necessary to develop all the effects of this complete subversion of the former
dominant influence, can any one for a moment doubt that one of its consequences will
be to dissipate among that more numerous, but now authoritative class, those
substantial fruits of power, the civil and military patronage, which, under the self-
same circumstances, were previously enjoyed exclusively by the aristocracy? The
electors of the British empire are much too numerous a body to possess interests
distinct from those of the rest of their countrymen; and, as the nation at large can
never derive advantages from war, we regard the Reform Bill, which has virtually
bestowed upon the ten-pounders of this country the guardianship of the Temple of
Janus, to be our guarantee for all future time of the continuance of peace.
Before concluding, let us, in a very few words, recur to the subject more immediately
under consideration. It has been customary to regard the question of the preservation
of Turkey, not as an affair admitting of controversy, but as one determined by the
wisdom of our ancestors; and the answer given by Chatham, that with those who
contended we had no interest in preserving Turkey he would not argue, may
probably be quoted to us. The last fifty years have, however, developed secrets for the
guidance of our statesmen, which, had that great man lived to behold them, he would
have profited by; he, at least, would not view this matter through the spectacles of his
grandfather, were he now presiding at the helm of the state, and surrounded by the
glare of light which our past unprofitable wars, the present state of the trade of the
colonies, and the preponderating value of our commerce with free America,? throw
around the question of going to war in defence of a nook of territory more than a
thousand miles distant, and over which we neither possess nor pretend to have any
control. That question must now be decided solely by reference to the interests of the
people of this country at this present day, which we have proved are altogether on the
side of peace and neutrality. Our inquiry is not as to the morality or injustice of the
casethat is not an affair between Russia and ourselves, but betwixt that people and
the Great Ruler of all nations; and we are no more called upon by any such
considerations to wrest the attribute of vengeance from the Deity, and deal it forth
upon the northern aggressor, than we are to preserve the peace and good behaviour of
Mexico, or to chastise the wickedness of the Ashantees.
It has been no part of our object to advocate the right of Russia to invade Turkey or
any other state; nor have we sought to impart too favourable a colouring to our
portraiture of the government or people of the former empire; but what nation can fail
to stand out in a contrast of loveliness, when relieved by the dark and loathsome
picture which the Ottoman territory presents to the eye of the observer? It ought not to
be forgotten that Russian civilisation (such as it is at this day) is a gain from the
empire of barbarism; that the population of that country, however low its condition
may now be, was, at no former period, so prosperous, enlightened, or happy, as now;
and that its rapid increase in numbers is one of the surest proofs of a salutary
government: whilst, on the other side, it must be remembered that Mahometanism has
sat, for nearly four centuries, as an incubus upon the fairest and most renowned
regions of the earth; and has, during all that period, paralysed the intellectual and
moral energies of the noblest portion of the human species; under whose benumbing
sway those countries which, in former ages produced Solomon, Homer, Longinus,
and Plato, have not given one poetic genius or man of learning to the worldbeneath
which the arts have remained unstudied by the descendants of Phidias and Praxiteles;
whilst labour has ceased where Alexandria, Tyre, and Colchis formerly flourished,
and the accumulation of wealth is unknown in the land where Crsus himself once
eclipsed even the capitalists of the modern world.? If we refer to the criterion afforded
by the comparison of numbers, we shall find in the place of the overflowing
population which, in former ages poured out from these regions to colonise the rest of
the world, nothing but deserted wastes and abandoned cities; and the spectacle of the
inhabitants of modern Turkey melting away, whilst history and the yet existing ruins
of empires attest the richness and fertility of its soil, affords incontestable proof of the
destructive and impoverishing character of the government of Constantinople.
Our object, however, in vindicating Russia from the attacks of prejudice and
ignorance, has not been to transfer the national hatred to Turkey, but to neutralise
public feeling, by showing that our only wise policynay, the only course consistent
with the instinct of self-preservationis to hold ourselves altogether independent of
and aloof from the political relations of both these remote and comparatively
barbarous nations. England, with her insular territory, her consolidated and free
institutions, and her civilised and artificial condition of society, ought not to be, and
cannot be, dependent for safety or prosperity upon the conduct of Russia or Turkey;
and she will not, provided wisdom governs her counsels, enter into any engagements
so obviously to the disadvantage of her people, as to place the peace and happiness of
this empire at the mercy of the violence or wickedness of two despotic rulers over
savage tribes more than a thousand miles distant from our shores.
While the Government of England takes peace for its motto, it is idle to think of
supporting Turkey,? says one of the most influential and active agitators in favour of
the policy of going to war with Russia. In the name of every artisan in the kingdom, to
whom war would bring the tidings, once more, of suffering and despair; in the behalf
of the peasantry of these islands, to whom the first cannon would sound the knell of
privation and death; on the part of the capitalists, merchants, manufacturers, and
traders, who can reap no other fruits from hostilities but bankruptcy and ruin; in a
word, for the sake of the vital interests of these and all other classes of the
community, we solemnly protest against Great Britain being plunged into war with
Russia, or any other country, in defence of Turkeya war which, whilst it would
inflict disasters upon every portion of the community, could not bestow a permanent
benefit upon any class of it; and one upon our success in which no part of the civilised
would have cause to rejoice. Having the interests of all orders of society to support
our argument in favour of peace, we need not dread war. These, and not the piques of
diplomatists, the whims of crowned heads, the intrigues of ambassadresses, or
schoolboy rhetoric upon the balance of power, will henceforth determine the foreign
policy of our government. That policy will be based upon the bon fide principle (not
Lord Palmerston's principle) of non-intervention in the political affairs of other
nations; and from the moment this maxim becomes the load-star by which our
government shall steer the vessel of the statefrom that moment the good old ship
Britannia will float triumphantly in smooth and deep water, and the rocks, shoals, and
hurricanes of foreign war are escaped for ever.
If it be objected, that this selfish policy disregards the welfare and improvement of
other countrieswhich is, we cordially admit, the primary object of many of those
who advocate a war with Russia, in defence of Turkey, and for the restoration of
Polandwe answer, that, so far as the objects we have in view are concerned, we join
hands with nearly every one of our opponents. Our desire is to see Poland happy,
Turkey civilised, and Russia conscientious and free; it is still more our wish that these
ameliorations should be bestowed by the hands of Britain upon her less instructed
neighbours: so far the great majority of our opponents and ourselves are agreed; how
to accomplish this beneficent purpose is the question whereon we differ. They would
resort to the old method of trying, as Washington Irving says, to promote the good of
their neighbours, and the peace and happiness of the world, by dint of the cudgel.
Now, there is an unanswerable objection to this method: experience is against it; it has
been tried for some thousands of years, and has always been found to fail. But, within
our own time, a new light has appeared which has penetrated our schools and
families, and illuminated our prisons and lunatic asylums, and which promises soon to
pervade all the institutions and relations of social life. We allude to that principle
which, renouncing all appeals, through brute violence, to the mere instinct of fear,
addresses itself to the nobler and far more powerful qualities of our intellectual and
moral nature. This principle which, from its very nature as a standard, tends to the
exaltation of our species, has abolished the use of the rod, the fetters, the lash, and the
strait-waistcoat, and which, in a modified degree, has been extended even to the brute
creation, by substituting gentleness for severity in the management of horses? and the
treatment of dogs this principle we would substitute for the use of cannon and
musketry in attempting to improve or instruct other communities. In a word, our
opponents would promote the good of their neighbours by dint of the cudgel: we
propose to arrive at the same end by means of our own national example. Their
method, at least, cannot be right; since it assumes that they are at all times competent
to judge of what is good for otherswhich they are not: whilst, even if they were, it
would be still equally wrong; for they have not the jurisdiction over other states which
authorises them to do them even good by force of arms. If so, the United States and
Switzerland might have been justified, during the prodigal reign of George IV., in
making an economical crusade against England, for the purpose of cudgelling us
out of our extravagance and into their frugality, which, no doubt, would have been
doing good to a nation of debtors and spendthrifts; instead of which, those countries
persevered in their peaceful example. And we have seen the result: Swiss economy
has enabled its people to outvie us in cheapness, and to teach us a lesson of frugal
industry on our own fortress of Gibraltar. It is thus that the virtues of nations operate
both by example and precept: and such is the power and rank they confer, that vicious
communities, like the depraved individual, are compelled to reform, or to lose their
station in the scale of society. States will all turn moralists, in the end, in self-defence.
Apply this principle to Russia, which we will suppose had conquered Turkey. Ten
years at least of turbulence and bloodshed would elapse before its fierce Mahometan
inhabitants submitted to their Christian invaders, which period must be one of
continued exhaustion to the nation. Suppose that at the end of that time those
plundered possessions became tranquillised, and the government, which had been
impoverished by internal troubles, began to reflect and to look abroad for information
as to the course of policy it should pursue. England, which had wisely remained at
peace, pursuing its reforms and improvements, would, we have a right to assume,
present a spectacle of prosperity, wealth, and power which invariably reward a period
of peace. Can there be a doubt that this example of the advantages to be derived from
labour and improvement over those accruing from bloodshed and rapine, presented in
the happiness of the peaceful and the misery of the warlike nation, would determine
the future career of Russia in favour of industry and commerce? The mere instinct of
self-love and self-preservation must so decide. Had England and all Europe been
plunged in war to prevent Russia from effecting her conquest there would have been
no such example of the fruits and blessings of peace at the close of hostilities as we
have here supposed her to present.
The influence which example has exerted over the conduct of nationsmore potent
and permanent than that of the cudgelmight form in itself the subject of a distinct
and interesting inquiry. It should not be confined to the electric effects of state
convulsions, which shock simultaneously the frame of neighbouring empires. The
tranquil and unostentatious educational reforms in Switzerland, the temperance
societies of America, and the railroads of England, exercise a sway as certain,
however gradual, over the imitativeness of the whole world as the glorious three
days of France or the triumph of the Reform Bill. But however interesting the topic,
our space does not allow us to pursue it further. Yet even whilst we write a motion is
making in the House of Commons for a committee to inquire into the mode in which
the American Government disposes of its waste lands. A Swiss journal informed us
the other day that at a recent meeting of the Vorort of that country, a member called
for a municipal reform measure similar to the English Corporation Act; and in a
Madrid journal which is now before us the writer recommends to the ministers of
police a plan for numbering and lettering the watchmen of that metropolis in imitation
of the new police of London. Such is example in a time of peace.
One word at parting between the author and the reader. This pamphlet, advocating
peace, economy, and a moral ascendancy over brute violence, as well as deprecating
national antipathies, has, as our excellent and public-spirited publisher will vouch,
been written without the slightest view to notoriety or gain (what fame or emolument
can accrue from the anonymous publication of an eightpenny work?), and we
therefore run no risk of invidious misconception if, in taking leave of our readers, we
do so, not with the usual bow of ceremony, but after a fashion of our own. In a word,
as trade, and not authorship, is our proper calling, they will, we hope, excuse our
attempting to make a bargain with them before we part. And, first, for that very small
portion of our friends who will only step out of their way to do an acceptable act
provided good and sufficient claims be established against them: they will compel us,
then, to remind them that this petty production (which we frankly admit reveals
nothing new) contains as much matter as might have been printed in a volume, and
sold at above ten times its charge; and, therefore, if those aforesaid customers approve
the quality of the article, indifferent as it is, our terms of sale are that they lend this
pamphlet to at least six of their acquaintances for perusal. This is the amount of our
demand, and as we are dealing with good men we shall book the debt with the
certainty that it will be duly paid.
But by far the larger portion of our readers will be of that class who, in the words of
Sterne, do good they know not why and care not wherefor. To them we say, If in
the preceding pages you discover a sincere, however feeble, attempt to preserve peace
and put down a gigantic national prejudice, an honest though humble resistance to the
false tenets of glory, an ardent but inadequate effort, by proving that war and violence
have no unison with the true interests of mankind to emancipate our moral and
intellectual nature from the domination of the mere animal propensity of
combativeness; if, in a word, you see sound views of commerce, just principles of
government, freedom, improvement, morality, justice, and truth, anxiously, and yet all
ineffectively advocated, then, and not otherwise, recommend this trifle to your
friends, place it in the hands of the nearest newspaper editors, and bring it in every
way possible before the eye of the public; and do this, not for the sake of the author or
the merit of his poor production, but that other and more competent writers may be
encouraged to take up with equal zeal and far greater ability the same cause, which we
religiously believe is the cause of the best interests of humanity.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
The circumstance of each of the preceding chapters having been stereotyped as soon
as written precludes the insertion of the following words as a note in another and
more appropriate part of the pamphlet.
The predominant feeling entertained with reference to Russia, and the one which has
given birth to the other passions nourished towards her, is that of fearfear of the
danger of an irruption of its people into western Europe, and the possibility of another
destruction of civilisation at the hands of those semi-barbaroustribes similar to that of
ancient Rome by their ancestors. But the Goths and Huns did not extinguish the
power and greatness of the Romans. The latter sunk a prey, not to the force of external
foes, but to their own internal vices and corruptions. Those northern nations which
invaded that empire, and whom we stigmatise as barbarians, were superior in the
manly qualities of courage, fortitude, discipline, and temperance to the Roman people
of their day. The Attilas and Alarics were equally superior to their contemporaries, the
descendants of the Csars, and they did not sweep with the besom of destruction that
devoted land until long after the dark, unrelenting Tiberius, the furious Caligula, the
stupid Claudius, the profligate and cruel Nero, the beastly Vitellius, and the timid,
inhuman Domitian had, by exterminating every ancient family of the republic, and
extirpating every virtue and every talent from the minds of the people, prepared the
way for the terrible punishment inflicted upon them.
Modern Europe bears no resemblance in its moral condition to that of ancient Rome at
the time we are alluding to. On the contrary, instead of a tendency towards
degeneracy, there is a recuperative principle observable in the progress of reforms and
improvements of the modern world which in its power of regeneration give ground
for hope that the present and future ages of refinement will escape those evils which
grew up alongside the wealth and luxury of ancient States, and ultimately destroyed
them.
But the application of the power of chemistry to the purposes of war furnishes the best
safeguard against the future triumph of savage hordes over civilised communities.
Gunpowder has for ever set a barrier against the irruption of barbarians into western
Europe. War without artillery and musketry is no longer possible, and these cannot be
procured by such people as form the great mass of the inhabitants of Russia. Such is
the power which modern inventions in warfare confer upon armies of men, that it is
no exaggeration to say that fifty thousand Prussian soldiers, with their complement of
field-pieces, rockets, and musketry are more than a match for all the savage warriors
who, with their rude weapons, at different epochs ravaged the world from the time of
Xerxes down to that of Tamarlane; whilst those countless myriads, without the aid of
gunpowder, would be powerless against the smallest of the hundreds of fortified
places that are now scattered over Europe. Henceforth, therefore, war is not merely an
affair of men, but of men, material, and money.
For some remarks upon the possibility of another irruption of barbarians, see Gibbon's
Rome, ch. 8.
APPENDIX.
Extracts From Various Writers, Illustrative Of The Condition Of
Turkey.
Indeed, it was impossible to conceive a more dismal scene of horror and desolation
than the Turkish capital now presented. Every day some new atrocities were
committed, and the bodies of the victims were either hanging against the doors and
walls, or lying without their heads weltering and trampled on in the middle of the
streets. At this season flights of kites, vultures, and other unclean birds of prey return
after their winter's migration, and, as if attracted by the scent of carcases, were seen
all day wheeling and hovering about, so as to cover the city like a canopy, whereever
a body was exposed. By night the equally numerous and ravenous dogs were heard
about some headless body, with the most dismal howlings, or snarling and fighting
over some skull which they were gnawing and peeling. In fact, all that Byron has
feigned of Corinth, or Bruce has described of Abyssinia, or that you have elsewhere
read that is barbarous, disgusting, and terrible in Eastern usages was here realised.A
Residence in Constantinople during the Greek and Turkish Revolutions. By the Rev.
R. Walsh, LL.D.
Turkish Desolation.
My way lay along the shores of the Hellespont. The weather had now become
moderate, and the storm was succeeded by a balmy sunshine. I cannot describe to you
the exquisite beauty of the undulating downs which extend along the Asiatic side of
this famous sea; the greensward sloping down to the water's edge, intersected every
mile by some sweet-wooded valley running up into the country at one extremity, and
terminating in the other by a romantic cove, over whose strand the lucid waves
rippled. Here it was that the first picture of Turkish desolation presented itself to me.
While those smiling prospects which a good Providence seems to have formed for the
delight of man invite him to fix his dwelling among them, all is desert and desolate as
the prairies of the Missouri. In a journey of nearly fifteen miles along the coast, and
for half the length of the Hellespont, I did not meet a single human habitation, and this
in the finest climate, the most fertile soil, and once the most populous country in the
world.Walsh.
A victory obtained at Patras was certified to the Sultan by the very intelligible gazette
of a waggon loaded with the ears and noses of the slain, which were exposed in a heap
to gratify the feelings of pious Mussulmans. Dr. Walsh went to see this ghastly
exhibition, which he thus describes in his Residence in Constantinople:Here I
found, indeed, that the Turks did actually take human features as the Indians take
scalps, and the trophies of ears, lips, and noses were no fiction. At each side of the
gate were two piles, like small haycocks, formed of every portion of the countenance.
The ears were generally perforated and hanging on strings. The noses had one lip and
a part of the forehead attached to them; the chins had the other, with generally a long
beard. Sometimes the face was cut off whole, and all the features remained together;
sometimes it was divided into scraps in all forms of mutilation. It was through these
goodly monuments of human glory the Sultan and all his train passed every day, and
no doubt were highly gratified by the ghastly aspects they presented; for here they
were to remain till they were trampled into the mire of the street. Wherever the heaps
were partly trodden down the Turks passed over them with perfect indifference. The
features, growing soft by putridity, continually attached themselves to their feet, and
frequently a man went off with a lip or a chin sticking to his slippers, which were
fringed with human beard as if they were lined with fur. This display I again saw by
accident on another occasion, and when you hear of sacks of ears sent to
Constantinople you may be sure it is a reality, and not a figure of speech. But you are
not to suppose they are always cut from the heads of enemies, and on the particular
occasion they are sent to commemorate. The number of Greeks killed at Patras did not
exceed perhaps one hundred; but noses, ears, and lips were cut indiscriminately from
every skull they could find to swell the amount.
Geography And The Use Of The Globes.
Lord Strangford sent the Porte a valuable present. He had brought with him a pair of
very large globes from England, and as the Turks had latterly shown some disposition
to learn languages, he thought it would be a good opportunity to teach them
something else, and he determined to send them over to the Porte, and asked me to go
with them and explain their object. . . . This important present was brought over with
becoming respect. A Choreash went first with his bton of office, then followed two
Janissaries, like Atlases, bearing worlds upon their shoulders, then myself, attended
by our principal dragoman in full costume, and finally a train of Janissaries and
attendants. When arrived at the Porte we were introduced to the Reis Effendi, or
Minister for Foreign Affairs, who with other ministers were waiting for us. When I
had the globes put together on their frames they came round us with great interest, and
the Reis Effendi, who thought, ex officio, he ought to know something of geography,
put on his spectacles and began to examine them. The first thing that struck them was
the compass in the stand. When they observed the needle always kept the same
position they expressed great surprise, and thought it was done by some interior
mechanism. It was midday, and the shadow of the frame of the window was on the
floor. I endeavoured to explain to them that the needle was always found nearly in
that direction, pointing to the north. I could only make them understand that it always
turned towards the sun! The Reis Effendi then asked me to show him England. When
I pointed out the small comparative spot on the great globe he turned to the rest and
said Keetchuk (little), and they repeated all round Keetchuk, in various tones of
contempt. But when I showed them the dependencies of the empire, and particularly
the respectable size of India, they said Beeyuk with some marks of respect. I also
took occasion to show them the only mode of coming from thence to Constantinople
by sea, and that a ship could not sail with a cargo of coffee from Mocha across the
Isthmus of Suez. The newly appointed dragoman of the Porte, who had been a Jew,
and was imbued with a slighter tincture of information, was present, so after
explaining to him as much as I could make him comprehend, I left to him the task of
further instructing the ministers in this new science. Indeed, it appeared to me as if
none of them had ever seen an artificial globe before, or even a mariner's
compass.Walsh's Constantinople.
It has been often remarked that the Turks are rather encamped than settled in Europe.
Far from improving the countries they govern, they scathe everything that comes
within their reach, they destroy monuments but build none, and when at length they
are driven out by the chances of war or revolution, the only traces they leave of their
sway are to be found in the desolation with which they everywhere encompass
themselves. They may be compared to a flight of locusts eating up and destroying
whatever they alight upon, conferring no benefits in return, and at last, when swept
from the face of the earth by some kindly blast, only remembered from the havoc they
have committed.Encyclopdia Britannica, new edition, vol. iv., p.
129.Art.Athens.
The barbarous anarchic despotism of Turkey, where the finest countries in the most
genial climate in the world are wasted by peace more than any countries have been
worried by war, where arts are unknown, where manufactures languish, where science
is extinguished, where agriculture decays, where the human race itself melts away and
perishes under the eye of the observer.Burke.
The following is extracted from a work published in America under the title of Letters
from Constantinople and its Environs by an American, and attributed to the pen of
Commodore Porter, the United States' Charg d'Affaires at the Sublime Porte:At
length we discovered, about two miles to the left of our road, a Turkish village, which
may always be known by the cypress-trees and the burying-ground, and soon after
this an Armenian village, which may be known by the neat cultivation, the fine, shady
trees, the mill-race, and an air of primitive patriarchal sort of comfort which seems to
be thrown over it. You can, once in a while, see at a distance something like a
petticoat moving about, and here are herds of cattle, flocks of sheep, goats, &c. But
none of these are visible on your approach to a Turkish town, where all is still and
gloomy. Shopkeepers you will find sitting cross-legged, waiting for their customers,
too lazy and indolent to rise for the purpose of taking down an article for inspection. It
is a truth that I have never seen a Turk buy anything since I have been in the country.
They are absolutely too indolent to buy. Neither have I ever seen a Turk work, if there
is a possibility of his being idle. I have never seen one stand, if there is a possibility of
his being seated. A blacksmith sits cross-legged at his anvil, and seats himself when
he shoes a horse. A carpenter seats himself when he saws, bores holes, or drives a
nail, planes, dubs with his small adze, or chops with his hatchet (I believe I have
named all his tools), if it be possible to do so without standing.
Nothing can be more gloomy than the appearance of things on entering a Turkish
village. It is as quiet as the grave; the streets are narrow; the doors all shut and locked;
the windows all latticed; not a human being to be seen in the filthy streets. A
growling, half-starved dog, or a bitch with her hopeful progeny, which depend for
their subsistence on some depository of filthis all you meet with of animated nature.
You proceed through the inhospitable outskirts, despairing of meeting wherewith to
satisfy the calls of nature, or a place of shelter, when you at length arrive at perhaps
half-a-dozen filthy little shops of six feet square, in each of which you discover a
solitary, squatting, silent, smoking Turk. He may glance his eyes at you, but will not
turn his head: that would be too much trouble. Now, investigate the contents of these
shops, and you will find as follows:five, or, perhaps, six girths, for pack-horses,
made of goats' hair; half-a-dozen halters for horses; fifteen or twenty pounds of rancid
Russian butter; a small box containing from one to two pounds of salt, and half a
pound of ground pepper. A few bars of curd cheese, looking very like Marseilles
soap, not much better in taste, and not so good for digestion. One quart of black salt
olives; half a pound of sewing twine, cut into needlefuls; one clothes line; half-a-
dozen loaves of brown bread; and two bunches of onions, with a string of garlic. Nine
times out of ten, you will find this to be the stock in trade of a Turkish village
shopkeeper: and, over this, in his pitiful box, will he sit and smoke, day after day,
without seeing a purchaser, or apparently caring whether one comes or not. If one
calls and asks if he has any particular article, his answer is, simply, without raising his
eyes, Yoke. (No.) Can you inform me where I may procure the article? Yoke. It
is of no use to try to get anything more out of him. He is as silent as the grave. If he
has the article asked for, he hands it to you, and names the price. When the money is
laid on the counter, he merely brushes it with his hand through the hole in the till, and
then relapses into his former apathy. No compliments, no thanks for favours
received, no call again if you please. Not the slightest emotion can be discovered.
He never raises his eyes to see who his customer is or was; he sees nothing but the
article sold, and the money; and he would disdain to spend a breath or perform an
action that was not indispensable to the conclusion of the bargain. . . . . Give a Turk a
mat to sleep on, a pipe and a cup of coffee, and you will give him the sum total of all
earthly enjoyments.
The magnificent plain of Nice burst on our view. I have often dwelt with pleasure on
the recollection of my agreeable surprise, when, descending the mountains at a place
(I think) called the Vent of Cordova, the lovely view of the valley of Mexico first
presented itself to my astonished sight. No one, I will venture to say, who has
travelled from Vera Cruz to Mexico, but recollects the spot I have referred to, and felt
as I have felt. Let him recall to his mind the splendour of that scene, and he may then
imagine the plain of Nice, in all its fertility and beauty; not, indeed, so extensive, but
more studded with trees, and equally so with villages, and presenting a picture to the
eye and the imagination not to be surpassed. But, after a painful descent from our
lofty eminence, by a very steep road, we found that, like the plain of Mexico, it was
distance that gave to the scenery its principal enchantment. . . . . Like Mexico,
everything is beautiful in the distance, but nothing will bear examination. View the
scene closely, and the charm vanishes. The large and fertile fields are miles from any
human habitation; and, if a solitary being or two happen to be labouring near, you find
them covered with rags and vermin. The shepherd, with his numerous flocks and
herds, is a half-starved, miserable wretch, covered with filthy sheep-skins, and
disgusting to look at. His food, a dry crust, with perhaps an onion. Enter the villages,
the streets are almost impassable from filth, and you meet only a ragged, dirty, squalid
population of beggars. The noble fields and vineyards are the property of some
hungry and rapacious lord, whose interests are confided to a cruel, hard-hearted, and
rapacious age. The few in power, revelling in affluence and splendour, have reduced
the mass of the people to a degree of misery which appears insupportable. This is
Turkey.
Extract From Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopdia (History Of
Poland).
Lewis. 13701382.
By yielding to the exorbitant demands of the turbulent and interested noblesby
increasing their privileges, and exempting them from the necessary contributionshe
threw a disproportionate burden on the other orders of the State, and promoted that
aristocratic ascendancy before which monarch and throne were soon to bow.P. 101.
Hedwig. 13821386.
The death of Louis was speedily followed by troubles, raised chiefly by the turbulent
nobles. Notwithstanding their oaths in favour of Mary and her husband
Sigismundoaths in return for which they had extorted such great concessionsthey
excluded both, with the design of extorting still greater from a new candidate.
Sigismund advanced to claim his rights. A civil war desolated several provinces.P.
102.
Casimir IV. 14451492.
Under this monarch aristocracy made rapid progress in Poland. When, on the
conclnsion of the war he assembled a diet for the purpose of devising means of paying
the troops their arrears, it was resolved to resist the demand in a way which should
compel him to relinquish it. Hitherto the diets had consisted of isolated nobles, whom
the king's summons or their own will had assembled: as their votes were irresponsible
and given generally from motives of personal interest or prejudice, the advantage to
the order at large had been purely accidental. Now, that order resolved to exercise a
new and irresistible influence over the executive. As every noble could not attend the
diet, yet as every one wished to have a voice in its deliberations, deputies were elected
to bear the representations of those who could not attend. . . . . What in England was
the foundation of rational freedom, was in Poland subversive of all order, all good
government: in the former country, representation was devised as a check to feudal
aristocracy, which shackled both king and nation; in the latter it was devised by the
aristocracy themselves, both to destroy the already too limited prerogatives of the
crown, and to rivet the chain of slavery on the whole nation.Pp. 121122. . . . . This
very diet annulled the humane decree of Casimir the Great, which permitted a peasant
to leave his master for ill usage; and enacted that in all cases such peasant might be
demanded by his lord; nay, that whoever harboured the fugitive should be visited with
a heavy fine. This, and the assumption of judicial authority over their serfs, for
peasants they can no longer be called, was a restoration of the worst evils of
feudality.P. 123.
John Albert I. 14921506.
Evils of a nature still more to be dreaded menaced the murmuring kingdom. Aided by
the Turks and Tartars, the Voivode of Wallachia penetrated into Podolia and Polish
Russia, the flourishing towns of which he laid in ashes, and returned with immense
booty, and 100,000 captives.P. 125. . . . . Under his reign, not only was the national
independence in great peril, but internal freedom, the freedom of the agricultural
class, was annihilated. At the diet of Petrikaus (held in 1496), the selfish aristocracy
decreed that henceforth no citizen or peasant should aspire to the ecclesiastical
dignities, which they reserved for themselves alone. The peasantry, too, were
prohibited from other tribunals than those of their tyrannical masters: they were
reduced to the most deplorable slavery.P. 127.
Alexander. 15011506.
Thus ended a reign more deplorable, if possible, than that of John Albert.P. 129.
Sigismund I. 15061548.
He had, however, many obstacles to encounter: neither the patriotism of his views nor
the influence of his character could always restrain the restless tumults of his nobles,
who, proud of their privileges, and secure of impunity, thwarted his wisest views
whenever caprice impelled them. Then the opposition of the high and petty nobility;
the eagerness of the former to distinguish themselves from the rest of their order by
titles as well as riches; the hostility of both towards the citizens and burghers, whom
they wished to enslave as effectually as they had done the peasantry; and, lastly, the
fierceness of contention between the adherents of the reformed and old religion, filled
his court with factions and his cities with discontent.P. 136.
Interregnum. Henry De Valois. 15721574.
The death of Sigismund Augustus, the last of the Jagellos, gave the Polish nobles
what they had long wantedthe privilege of electing their monarchs, and of
augmenting their already enormous powers by every new pacta conventa.? . . . . At
first it was expected that the election would be made by deputies only; but, on the
motion of a leading palatine, that, as all nobles were equal in the eye of the law, so all
ought to concur in the choice of a ruler, it was carried by acclamation that the
assembly should consist of the whole body of the equestrian orderof all, at least,
who were disposed to attend. This was another fatal innovation; a diet of two or three
hundred members, exclusive of the senators, might possibly be managed; but what
authority could control 100,000?Pp. 148149.
This feeble prince soon sighed for the banks of the Seine; amidst the ferocious people
whose authority he was constrained to recognise, and who despised him for his
imbecility, he had no hope of enjoyment. . . . . The truth is, no criminal ever longed to
flee from his fetters so heartily as Henry from his imperious subjects. . . . . His flight
was soon made known. . . . . A pursuit was ordered; but Henry was already on the
lands of the Empire, before he was overtaken by the grand chamberlian, to whom he
presented a ring and continued his journey.P. 157.
Stephen. 15751586.
After the deposition of Henry, no less than five foreign and two native princes were
proposed as candidates for the crown.
During the struggle of Stephen with his rebellious subjects, the Muscovites had laid
waste Livonia. To punish their audacity, and wrest from their grasp the conquests they
had made during the reign of his immediate predecessor, was now his object. War,
however, was more easily declared than made; the treasury was empty, and the nobles
refused to replenish it. Of them it might truly be said, that, while they eagerly
concurred in any burdens laid on the other orders of the Stateon the clergy and the
burghersthose burdens they would not so much as touch with one of their fingers. . .
. . The Polish nobles were less alive to the glory of their country than to the
preservation of their monstrous privileges, which they apprehended might be
endangered under so vigilant and able a ruler. . . . . However signal the services which
this great prince rendered to the republic, he could not escape the common lot of his
predecessorsthe jealousy, the opposition, and the hatred of a licentious nobility; nor
could he easily quell the tumults which arose among them.Pp. 158, 160, 161, 165.
Sigismund III. 15861632.
As usual, the interregnum afforded ample opportunity for the gratification of
individual revenge, and of the worst passions of our nature. The feud between
Zborowskis and Zamoyskis was more deadly than ever. Both factions appeared in the
field of election, with numerous bodies of armed adherents. The former amounted to
10,000: the latter were less strong in number, but more select.P. 167. . . . . His reign
was, as might be expected from his character, disastrous. The loss of Moldavia and
Wallachia, of a portion of Livonia, and, perhaps still more, of the Swedish crown for
himself, and the Muscovite for his son, embittered his declining years. Even the
victories which shed so bright a lustre over his kingdom were but too dearly
purchased by the blood and treasure expended. The internal state of Poland, during
this period, is still worse. It exhibits little more than his contentions with his nobles,
or with his Protestant subjects; and the oppression of the peasants, by their avaricious,
tyrannical, and insulting mastersan oppression which he had the humanity to pity,
but not the vigour to alleviate.P. 178.
Uladislas VII. (Vasa.) 16321648.
But all the glories of this reign, all the advantages it procured to the republic, were
fatally counterbalanced by the haughty and inhuman policy of the nobles towards the
Cossacks. In the central provinces of the republic, their unbounded power was
considerably restrained in its exercise by their habitual residence among their serfs;
but the distant possessions of the Ukraine never saw the face of their rapacious
landlords, but were abandoned to Jews, the most unpopular and hateful of stewards. . .
. . Obtaining no redress from the dietthe members of which, however jealous of
their own liberties, would allow none to the peoplethey had laid their complaints
before the throne of the late monarch, Sigismund III. With every disposition, that
monarch was utterly powerless to relieve them: Uladislas was equally well-
intentioned, and equally unable to satisfy them. On one occasion the latter prince is
said to have replied to the deputies from these sons of the wildernessHave you no
sabres? Whether such a reply was given them or not, both sabres and lances were
speedily in requisition. Their first efforts were unsuccessful. This failure rather
enraged than discouraged them; and their exasperation was increased by the
annihilation of their religious hierarchy, of their civil privileges, of their territorial
revenues, and by their degradation to the rank of serfsall which iniquities were done
by the diet of nobles 1638. Nay, a resolution was taken, at the same time, to extirpate
both their faith and themselves, if they showed any disposition to escape the bondage
doomed them. Again they armed, and, by their combination, so imposed on the troops
sent to subdue them, that a promise was made them of restoring the privileges which
had been so wickedly and so impolitically wrested from them. Such a promise,
however, was not intended to be fulfilled; the Cossacks, in revenge, made frequent
irruptions into the palatinate of the grand duchy, and no longer prevented the Tartars
from similar outrages. Some idea may be formed of the extent of these depredations
when it is known that, from the princely domains of one noble alone 30,000 peasants
were carried away, and sold as slaves to the Turks and Tartars. Things were in this
state, when a new instance of outrageous cruelty, inflicted upon the family of a
veteran Cossack, Bogdan Chmielnicki by namewhose valour under the ensigns of
the republic was known far beyond the bounds of his nationspread the flames of
insurrection from one end of the Ukraine to the other, and lent fearful force to their
intensity. . . . . The bolt of vengeance, so long suspended, at length fell. At the head of
40,000 Tartars, and of many times that number of Cossacks, who had wrongs to be
redressed as well as he, and whom the tale of his had summoned around him with
electric rapidity, he began his fearful march. Two successive armies of the republic,
which endeavoured to stem the tide of inundation, were utterly swept away by the
torrent; their generals and superior officers led away captives, and 70,000 peasants
consigned to hopeless bondage.
At this critical moment expired Uladislasa misfortune scarcely inferior to the
insurrection of the Cossacks; for never did a State more urgently demand the authority
of such a monarch. Under him the republic was prosperous, notwithstanding her wars
with the Muscovites and Turks; and, had his advice been taken, the Cossacks would
have remained faithful to her, and opposed an effectual barrier to the incursions of the
Tartars. But eternal justice had doomed the chastisement of a haughty, tyrannical, and
unprincipled aristocracy, on whom reasoning, entreaty, or remonstrance could have
no effect, and whose understandings were blinded by hardness of heart. In their
conduct during these reigns there appears something like fatality, which may be
explained by a maxim confirmed by all human experienceQuem Deus vult perdere,
prius dementat.? Pp. 182345.
InterregnumJohn Casimir. 1698.
Never was interregnum more fatal than that which followed the death of Uladislas.
The terrible Bogdan, breathing vengeance against the republic, seized on the whole of
the Ukraine, and advanced towards Red Russia. He was joined by vast hordes of
Tartars from Bessarabia and the Crimea, who longed to assist in the contemplated
annihilation of the republic. This confederacy of Mussulmans, Socinians, and Greeks,
all actuated by feelings of the most vindictive character, committed excesses at which
the soul revolts;the churches and monasteries were levelled with the groundthe
nuns were violatedpriests were forced, under the raised poniard, not merely to
contract, but to consummate marriage with the trembling inmates of the cloisters, and,
in general, both were subsequently sacrificed; the rest of the clergy were despatched
without mercy. But the chief weight of vengeance fell on the nobles, who were
doomed to a lingering death; whose wives and daughters were stripped naked before
their eyes; and, after violation, were whipped to death in sight of the ruthless
invaders.P. 186.
Scarcely an evil can be mentioned which did not afflict the kingdom during the
eventful reign of this monarch. To the horrors of invasion by so many enemies must
now be added those of domestic strifeP. 196. . . . . In this beautiful picture of
disasters abroad and anarchy at homeof carnage and misery on every side, the
disbanded military now took a prominent part.P. 197. . . . . In short, the reign of this
monarch, while it exhibits a continued succession of the worst evils which have
afflicted nations, is unredeemed by a single advantage to the republic; its only
distinction is the fearfully accelerated impulse which it gave to the decline of Poland.
The fact speaks little either for monarch or diet: but he must not be blamed with
undue severity; his heart was better than his head; and both were superior to those of
the turbulent, fierce, and ungovernable men who composed a body at once legislative
and executive.
Michael. 16681673.
The first act of the diet of nobles was to declare that no Polish king should hereafter
abdicate; the fetters he might assume were thus rendered everlasting.P. 199. . . . . At
this time, no less than five armed confederacies were opposed to each otherof the
great against the kingof the loyal in his favourof the army in defence of their
chief, whom Michael and his party had resolved to try, as implicated in the French
party; of the Lithuanians against the Poles; and, finally, of the servants against their
mastersthe peasants against their lords.P. 203.
John III. (Sobieski.) 16741696.
Though he convoked diet after diet, in the hope of obtaining the necessary supplies,
diet after diet was dissolved by the fatal veto; for the same reason, he could not
procure the adoption of the many salutary courses he recommended, to banish
anarchy, to put the kingdom on a permanent footing of defence, and to amend the
laws.P. 209.
Frederic Augustus. 16961733.
Frederic Augustus died early in 1733. His reign was one continued scene of disasters;
many of which may be imputed to himself, but more, perhaps, to the influence of
circumstances.P. 225.
Frederic Augustus II. 17331763.
Though, under Frederic Augustus, Poland entered on no foreign war, his reign was the
most disastrous in her annals. While the Muscovite and Prussian armies traversed her
plains at pleasure, and extorted whatever they pleased; while one faction openly
opposed another, not merely in the diet, but on the field; while every national
assembly was immediately dissolved by the veto, the laws could not be expected to
exercise much authority. They were, in fact, utterly disregarded; the tribunals were
divided, or forcibly overturned, and brute force prevailed on every side. The
miserable peasants vainly sought the protection of their lords, who were either
powerless or indifferent to their complaints. While thousands expired of hunger, a far
greater number sought to relieve their necessities by open depredations. Bands of
robbers, less formidable only than the kindred masses congregated under the name of
soldiers, infested the country in every direction. Famine aided the devastations of
both; the population, no less than the wealth of the kingdom, decreased with frightful
rapidity.P. 232.
Stanislas Augustus. 17631795.
During the few following years, Poland presented the spectacle of a country
exhausted alike by its own dissensions and the arms of its enemies. The calm was
unusual, and would have been a blessing could any salutary laws have been adopted
by the diet. Many such, indeed, were proposed, the most signal of which was the
emancipation of the serfs; but the very proposition was received with such indignation
by the selfish nobles, that Russian gold was not wanted to defeat the other measures
with which it was accompaniedthe suppression of the veto, and the establishment of
an hereditary monarchy.P. 242. . . . The republic was thus erased from the list of
nations after an existence of near ten centuries. That a country without government
(for Poland had none, properly so called, after the extinction of the Jagellos, 1572),
without finances, without army, and depending for its existence, year after year, on
tumultuous levies, ill-disciplined, ill-armed, and worse paid, should have so long
preserved its independence, in defiance, too, of the powerful nations around, and with
a great portion of its own inhabitants, whom ages of tyranny had exasperated hostile
to its successis the most astonishing fact in all history. What valour must that have
been, which could enable one hundred thousand men to trample on a whole nation
naturally prone to revolt, and bid defiance to Europe and Asiato Christian and
Mussulman, both ever ready to invade the republic!P. 256.
1793 And 1853,
In Three Letters.
The passions were excited; democratic ambition was awakened; the desire of power
under the name of Reform was rapidly gaining ground among the middle ranks, and
the institutions of the country were threatened with an overthrow as violent as that
which had recently taken place in the French monarchy. In these circumstances, the
only mode of checking the evil was by engaging in a foreign contest, by drawing off
the ardent spirits into active service, and, in lieu of the modern desire for innovation,
rousing the ancient gallantry of the British nation.Alison, vol. iv., p. 7.
NOTE.
Mr. Cobden wrote his pamphlet on Russia mainly to combat the alarm which the
supposed policy of that unwieldy empire had excited. It was therefore only natural
that, when in 18523 the public mind was filled with apprehensions of a French
invasion, Mr. Cobden should thoroughly examine the grounds of the panic, and seek
to recall the nation to a sense both of what was due to its own dignity and of the
misery which could not fail to be provoked by the revival of the ancient distrust and
enmity between the two countries. The series of admirable speeches which he
delivered at this time will long live in the memory of his countrymen. Mr. Cobden
saw a considerable analogy between the epoch of 1793 and that of 1853; for in both
the same influences were at work to stimulate the fears of the people, and in both our
nearest neighbour was the object of attack. The death of the Duke of Wellington, as
well as the elevation of Louis Napoleon to supreme power, contributed to re-awaken
the old sentiment of hostility towards France, and therefore, taking a typical sermon
on the Iron Duke's death as, to some extent, the text of his pamphlet, Mr. Cobden
proceeded to deduce from the authentic history of a former period the lessons which it
taught, and to show that whatever might have been the traditions of statesmen, the
true interests of both nations were based upon mutual friendship and goodwill.
This pamphlet excited the attention not only of England, but of the civilised world,
and gave birth to eager discussions in every European and American journal. It was
published, in extenso, in the columns of the Times and of the Manchester Examiner.
Some fifty thousand copies of a cheap edition were circulated by the Peace Congress
Committee alone. It passed through many editions and its readers must have
numbered hundreds of thousands.
The preface which Mr. Cobden wrote for the last edition is reproduced on the
following page.
PREFACE.
The storm of adverse criticism with which the first appearance of this pamphlet was
assailed from certain quarters did not surprise me. My censors had joined in the cry of
a French invasion, and my argument would therefore only prove successful in
proportion as it impugned their judgment. Unless I could be shown to be wrong, they
could not possibly be right. When the accuser is arraigned before the accused, it is not
difficult to foresee what the judgment will be. Time can alone arbitrate between me
and my opponents; but even they must admit that the three months which have
elapsed since I penned these pages have not diminished my chances of a favourable
award.
I have endeavoured with all humility to profit by the strictures so liberally bestowed
on the historical part of my argument, by correcting any errors into which I might
have inadvertently fallen. But I am bound to state that I have not found an excuse for
altering a fact, or for adding or withdrawing a single line. I have been charged with an
anachronism in having designated the hostilities which terminated in 1815 as the war
of 1793. I must confess that I have regarded this objection as something very like a
compliment, in so far at least as it may without presumption be accepted in proof of
the difficulties in the way of hostile criticismfor who is ignorant that Napoleon, the
genius of that epoch, was brought forth and educated by usthat he, until then an
obscure youth, placed his foot upon the first step of the ladder of fame when he drove
our forces from Toulon in 1793, and that it was in overcoming the coalitions created
by British energy, and subsidised with English gold, that he found occasions for the
display of his almost superhuman powers?
It is true that there were brief suspensions of hostilities at the peace, or, more properly
speaking, the truce of Amiens, and during Bonaparte's short sojourn at Elba; but even
if it were clear that Napoleon's ambition put an end to the peace, it would prove
nothing but that he had by the ordinary workings of the moral law been in the
meantime raised into a retributive agent for the chastisement of those who were the
authors of the original war. I am bound, however, to add that, if we examine the
circumstances which led to the renewal of hostilities, after the short intervals of peace,
we shall find that our government showed quite as great readiness for war in 1803 and
1815 as they had done in 1793.
R. C.
March 22nd, 1853.
LETTER I.
Mr. Cobden To The Reverend .
My Dear Sir,
Accept my thanks for your kindness in forwarding me a copy of your sermon upon
the death of the Duke of Wellington. I am glad to observe that, like nearly all the
commentators upon the achievements of the great warrior, you think it necessary to
assume the fact that the war of the French Revolution was on our side defensive in its
origin, and had for its object the vindication of the rights and liberties of mankind. A
word or two upon that question by-and-by. But let us at least rejoice that, thanks to the
progress of the spirit of Christianity, we have so far improved upon the age of
Froissart as no longer to lavish our admiration upon warriors regardless of the cause
to which they may devote themselves. It is not enough now that a soldier possesses
that courage which Gibbon designates the cheapest and most common quality of
human nature, and which a still greater? authority has declared to be the attribute of
all men; he must be morally right, or he fights without our sympathy; he must present
better title-deeds than the record of his exploits written in blood with the point of the
sword before he can lay claim to our reverence or admiration. This, at least, is the
doctrine now professed, and the profession of such a faith, even if our works do not
quite correspond, is an act of homage to an advanced civilisation.
The sermon with which you have favoured me, and which is, I presume, but one of
many thousands written in the same spirit, takes still higher ground; it looks forward
to the time when the religion of Christ shall have so far prevailed over the wickedness
of this world that men will beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into
pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn
war any more. In the meantime it condemns all war, excepting that which is strictly
defensive, and waged in behalf of the dearest interests of humanity; it professes no
sympathy for warriors, no admiration for the profession of arms, and sees less glory in
the achievements of the most successful soldier than in the calm endurance of the
Christian martyr, or the heroism of him who first ventures alone and unarmed as the
ambassador of Jesus Christ among the heathen. But, says the sermon, an occasion
may undoubtedly arise when a resort to arms is necessary to rescue the nations of
Europe from a tyrant who has trodden their liberties under foot. At such times God
has never failed to raise up an instrument to accomplish the good work. Such an
occasion undoubtedly was the usurpation of Napoleon and his deadly hostility to this
country, and such an instrument was the Duke of Wellington.
It is impossible to deny that the last extract gives expression to the opinion of the
majority of the people of this countryor at least to a majority of those who form
opinions upon such mattersas to the origin of the last war.
If we were discussing the wars of the Heptarchy the question would not, as Milton has
truly observed, deserve more consideration at our hands than a battle of kites and
crows. But the impression that exists in the public mind respecting the origin and
history of the last French war may affect the question of peace or war for the future. It
is already giving a character to our policy towards the government and people of
France. There is a prevalent and active belief among us that that war arose from an
unprovoked and unjust attack made upon us; that we were desirous of peace, but were
forced into hostilities; that in spite of our pacific intentions our shores were menaced
with a French invasion; and that such having been our fate, in spite of all our efforts to
avoid a rupture, what so natural as to expect a like treatment from the same quarter in
future? and, as a rational deduction from these premises, we call for an increase of our
national defences.
Now so far is this from being a true statement of the case, it is, I regret to say, the very
opposite of the truth. I do not hesitate to affirm that nothing was ever more
conclusively proved by evidence in a court of law than the fact, resting upon historical
documents and official acts, that England was the aggressor in the last French war. It
is not enough to say that France did not provoke hostilities. She all but went down on
her knees (if I may apply such a phrase to a nation) to avert a rupture with this
country. Take one broad fact in illustration of the conduct of the two countries. On the
news of the insurrection in Paris on the 10th of August, 1792, reaching this country,
our ambassador was immediately recalled, not on the ground that any insult or slight
had been offered to him, but on the plea, as stated in the instructions transmitted to
him by the foreign minister, a copy of which was presented to Parliament, that the
King of France having been deprived of his authority the credentials under which our
ambassador had hitherto acted were no longer available; and at the same time we gave
the French ambassador at London notice that he would no longer be officially
recognised by our government, but could remain in England only in a private
capacity. How far the judgment of the present age sanctions the course our
government pursued on that occasion may be known by comparing our conduct then
with the policy we adopted in 1848, when our ambassador at Paris found no difficulty,
after the flight of Louis Philippe, in procuring fresh credentials to the French
Republic, and remaining at his post during all the successive changes of rulers, and
when our own government hastened to receive the ambassador of France, although he
was no longer accredited from a crowned head.
But France being in 1792 already involved in a war with Austria and Prussia, whose
armies were marching upon her frontiers, and menaced at the same time by Russia,
Sweden, Spain, and Sardinia, being in fact assailed openly or covertly by all the
despotic powers of the Continent, nothing was so much to be dreaded by her as a
maritime war with England, for which, owing to the neglected state of her navy, she
was wholly unprepared.? By the Treaty of 1786, which then regulated the intercourse
of the two countries, it was stipulated that the recalling or sending away their
respective ambassadors or ministers should be deemed to be equivalent to a
declaration of war between the two countries. Instead of seizing the opportunity of a
rupture afforded by the conduct of England, the French Government redoubled their
efforts to maintain peace. Their ambassador remained in London from August till the
January following, in his private capacity, holding frequent correspondence with our
foreign minister, Lord Grenville, submitting to any condition, however humiliating, in
order to procure a hearing, and not even resenting the indignity of having had two of
his letters returned to him, one of them through the medium of a clerk in the Foreign
Office. At length, upon the receipt of the intelligence of the execution of Louis XVI.,
the French ambassador received, on the 24th January, 1793, from Lord Grenville, an
order of the Privy Council peremptorily requiring him to leave the kingdom in eight
days.
The sole ground alleged by the British Government for this step was the execution of
the French King. England, which had 140 years before been the first to set the
example to Europe of decapitating a monarch, England which, as is observed by
Madame de Stael, has dethroned, banished, and executed more kings than all the rest
of Europe, was suddenly seized with so great a horror for regicides, as to be unable to
tolerate the presence of the French ambassador!
The war which followed is said by the sermon before me to have been in defence of
the liberties of Europe. Where are they? Circumspice!I can only say that I have
sought for them from Cadiz to Moscow without having been so fortunate as to find
them. When shall we be proof against the transparent appeal to our vanity involved in
the liberties-of-Europe argument? We had not forty thousand British troops
engaged on one field of battle on the Continent during the whole war. Yet we are
taught to believe that the nations of Europe, numbering nearly two hundred millions,
owe their liberty to our prowess. If so, no better proof could be given that they are not
worthy of freedom.
But, in truth, the originators of the war never pretended that they were fighting for the
liberties of the people anywhere. Their avowed object was to sustain the old
governments of Europe. The advocates of the war were not the friends of popular
freedom even at home. The Liberal party were ranged on the side of
peaceLansdowne, Bedford, and Lauderdale, in the Lords; and Fox, Sheridan, and
Grey, in the Commonswere the strenuous opponents of the war. They were
sustained out of doors by a small minority of intelligent men who saw through the arts
by which the war was rendered popular. But (and it is a mournful fact) the advocates
of peace were clamoured down, their persons and property left insecure, and even
their families exposed to outrage at the hands of the populace. Yes, the whole truth
must be told, for we require it to be known, as some safeguard against a repetition of
the same scenes; the mass of the people, then wholly uneducated, were instigated to
join in the cry for war against France. It is equally true, and must be remembered, that
when the war had been carried on for two years only, and when its effects had been
felt, in the high price of food, diminished employment, and the consequent sufferings
of the working classes, crowds of people surrounded the King's carriage, as he
proceeded to the Houses of Parliament, shouting, Bread, bread! peace, peace!
But, to revert to the question of the merits of the last French war. The assumption put
forth in the sermon that we were engaged in a strictly defensive war is, I regret to say,
historically untrue. If you will examine the proofs, as they exist in the unchangeable
public records, you will be satisfied of this. And let us not forget that our history will
ultimately be submitted to the judgment of a tribunal, over which Englishmen will
exercise no influence beyond that which is derived from the truth and justice of their
cause, and from whose decision there will be no appeal. I allude, of course, to the
collective wisdom and moral sense of future generations of men. In the case before us,
however, not only are we constrained by the evidence of facts to confess that we were
engaged in an aggressive war, but the multiplied avowals and confessions of its
authors and partisans themselves leave no room to doubt that they entered upon it to
put down opinions by physical force, one of the worst, if not the very worst, of
motives with which a people can embark in war. The question, then, is, shall we, in
estimating the glory of the general who commands in such a war, take into account
the antecedent merits of the war itself? The question is answered by the sermon before
me, and by every other writer upon the subject, professing to be under the influence of
Christian principles; they all assume, as the condition precedent, that England was
engaged in a defensive war.
There are two ways of judging the merits of a soldier; the one, by regarding solely his
genius as a commander, excluding all considerations of the justice of the cause for
which he fights. This is the ancient mode of dealing with the subject, and is still
followed by professional men, and others of easy consciences in such matters. These
critics will, for example, recognise a higher title to glory, in the career of Suwarrow
than in that of Kosciusko, because the former gained the greater number of important
victories.
There is another and more modern school of commentators which professes to
withhold its admiration from the deeds of the military hero, unless they be performed
in defence of justice and humanity. With these the patriot Pole is greater than the
Russian general, because his cause was just, he having been obviously engaged in a
defensive contest, and contending, too, for the dearest rights of home, family, and
country.
Now, the condition which I think we may fairly impose upon the latter description of
judges is, that they take the needful trouble to inform themselves of the merits of the
cause in hand, so as to be competent to give a conscientious judgment upon it. In the
case of the Duke of Wellington, the wars which he carried on with so much ability
and success on the Continent, were in their character precisely the opposite of that
upon which the sermon ought, according to its own principle, to invoke the
approbation of Heaven.
The Duke himself did not evidently recognise the responsibility of the commander for
the moral character of his campaigns. His theory of duty gave him military
absolution, and separated most completely the man from the soldier.
Some of the Duke's biographers have hardly done him justice, in the sense in which
they have eulogised him for the strict performance of his duty. Nor have they acted
with more fairness towards their countrymen, for, by implication, they would lead us
to infer that it is an exception to the rule when an Englishman does his duty. In the
vulgar meaning they have attached to this trait in his character, they have lowered him
to the level of the humblest labourer who does his duty for weekly wages. Duty with
the Duke meant something more. It was a professional principlethe military code
expressed in one word. He was always subordinate to some higher authority, and
acted from an impulse imparted from without; just as an army surrenders will, reason,
and conscience to some one who exercises all these powers in its behalf. Sometimes it
was the Queen; sometimes the public service; or the apprehension of a civil war; or a
famine which changed his course, and induced him to take up a new position; but
reason, or conscience, or will, seemed to have no more to do in the matter than in the
manuvres of an army. We did not know to his death what were the Duke's
convictions upon Free Trade, Reform, or Catholic Emancipation. In his public
capacity he never seemed to ask himselfwhat ought I to do? but what must I do?
This principle of subordination, which is the very essence of military discipline, is at
the same time the weak part and blot of the system. It deprives us of the man, and
gives us instead a machine; but one requiring power of some description to move it.
The best that can be said of it is, that when honestly adhered to, as in the case of the
Duke, it protects us against the attempts of individual selfishness or ambition. He
would never have betrayed his trust, so long as he could find a power to whom he was
responsible. That was the only point upon which he could have ever felt any
difficulty. Had he been, like Monk, in the command of an army in times of political
confusion, he would have gone to London to discover the legal heir to his duty,
whether it was the son of the Protector, or the remains of the Rump Parliament; but he
would never have dreamed of selling himself to a Pretender, even had he been the son
of a king. Should the time ever come (which Heaven forbid!) when the work which
the Duke achieved needs to be repeated, it is not likely that there will be found one
who will surpass him in the ability, courage, honesty, and perseverance which he
brought to the accomplishment of the task. But amongst all his high meritsand they
place him in dignity and moral worth immeasurably above Marlborough or even
Nelsonhe would have been probably the last to have claimed for himself the title of
the champion of the liberties of any people. No attentive reader of his despatches will
fall into any such delusion as to his own views of his mission to the Peninsula. Or if
any doubt still remain, let him consult the classic pages of Napier.
Let me only refer you to the accompanying extracts from the History of the
Peninsular War:
But the occult source of most of these difficulties is to be found in the inconsistent
attempts of the British Cabinet to uphold national independence with internal slavery
against foreign aggression with an ameliorated government. The clergy, who led the
mass of the people, clung to the English, because they supported aristocracy and
church domination. ? ? ? The English ministers hating Napoleon, not because he was
the enemy of England, but because he was the champion of equality, cared not for
Spain unless her people were enslaved. They were willing enough to use a liberal
Cortes to defeat Napoleon, but they also desired to put down that Cortes by the aid of
the clergy, and of the bigoted part of the people.Vol. iv., p. 259.
It was some time before the church and aristocratic party discovered that the secret
policy of England was the same as their own. It was so, however, even to the
upholding of the Inquisition, which it was ridiculously asserted had become
objectionable only in name.Vol. iv., p. 350.
I could also refer you to another instructive passage (vol. iii., p. 271), telling us,
amongst other things, that the educated classes of Spain shrunk from the British
Government's known hostility to all free institutions. But I have carried my letter
already to an unreasonable length, and so I conclude.Yours faithfully, Richard
Cobden.
To The Reverend
LETTER II.
Mr. Cobden To The Reverend .
My Dear Sir,
You asked me to direct you to the best sources of information for those particulars
of the origin of the French war to which I briefly alluded in my last letter. What an
illustration does this afford of our habitual neglect of the most important part of
history, namely, that which refers to our own country, and more immediately affects
the destinies of the generation to which we belong! If you feel at a loss for the facts
necessary for forming a judgment upon the events of the last century, how much more
inaccessible must that knowledge be to the mass of the people. In truth, modern
English history is a tabooed study in our common schools, and the young men of our
Universities acquire a far more accurate knowledge of the origin and progress of the
Punic and Peloponnesian wars than of the wars of the French Revolution.
The best record of facts, and especially of State papers, referring to our modern
history is to be found in the Annual Register. These materials have been digested by
several writers. The Pictorial History of England is not conveniently arranged for
reference; and, although the facts are carefully given, the opinions, with reference to
the events in question, have a strong Tory bias. The earliest and latest periods of this
history are written in a liberal and enlightened spirit; but that portion which embraces
the American and French revolutions fell somehow under the control of politicians of
a more contracted and bigoted school. Alison, of whose views and principles I shall
not be expected to approve, has given the best narrative of the events which followed
the French Revolution down to the close of the war. His work, which has passed
through many editions, is admirably arranged for reference. Scott's Life of Napoleon
is the most readable book upon the subject, but not the most reliable for facts and
figures.
But if you would really understand the motives with which we embarked upon the last
French war, you must turn to Hansard, and read the debates in both Houses of
Parliament upon the subject from 1791 to 1796. This has been with me a favourite
amusement; and I have culled many extracts which are within reach. Shall I put them
together for you? They may probably be of use beyond the purposes of a private
letter. But there is one condition for which I will stipulate. There must be a very
precise and accurate attention to dates in order to understand the subject in hand.
Banish from your mind all vague floating ideas arising out of a confusion of events
extending over the twenty-two years of war. Our business lies with the interval from
1789, when the Constituent Assembly of France met, till 1793, when war commenced
between England and France. Bear in mind we are now merely investigating the
origin and cause of the rupture between the two countries.
The ten years from the close of the American war in 1783 to the commencement of
the war with France in 1793, was a period of remarkable prosperity. To the
astonishment of all parties the separation of the American Colonies, which had been
dreaded as the signal for our national ruin, was followed by an increased commercial
intercourse with the mother country. The mechanical inventions connected with the
cotton trade and other manufactures, and the recent improvement in the steam engine,
were adding rapidly to our powers of production; and the consequent demand for
labour, and accumulation of capital diffused general comfort and well-being
throughout the land. Such a state of things always tends to produce political
contentment, and never were the people of this country less disposed to seek for
reforms, still less to think of revolution, than when the attention of Europe was first
drawn to the proceedings of the Constituent Assembly of France in 1789. The
startling reforms effected by that body, and the captivating appeals to first principles
made by its orators, soon attracted the sympathies of a certain class of philosophical
reformers in this country, who, followed by a few of the more intelligent and
speculative amongst the artisan class in the towns, began to take an active interest in
French politics. Amongst the most influential of the leaders of this party were Doctor
Price and Doctor Priestley, and the Dissenters generally were ranked amongst their
adherents. But the great mass of the population were strongly, almost fanatically, on
the side of the Church, which was of course opposed to the doctrines of the French
Assembly; the spirit of hostility to Dissenters broke forth in many parts of the
country, and in Birmingham and other manufacturing places it led to riots, and a
considerable destruction of property. It was not, said Mr. Fox,? in his opinion a
republican spirit that we had to dread in this country; there was no tincture of
republicanism in the country. If there was any prevailing tendency to riot, it was on
the other side. It was the High Church spirit, and an indisposition to all reform which
marked more than anything else the temper of the times.
Such was the state of the public mind when Mr. Burke published his celebrated
Reflections on the French Revolution, a work which produced an instant and most
powerful effect not only in England, but upon the governing classes on the Continent.
This production was given to the world in 1790: the date is all important; for bear in
mind that the Constituent Assembly had then been sitting for a year only; that its
labours had been directed to the effecting of reforms compatible with the preservation
of a limited monarchy; and that such men as Lafayette and Necker had been taking a
lead in its deliberations. Do not confound in your mind the proceedings of this body
with those of the Legislative Assembly which succeeded to it the next year; or the
National Convention which followed the year after. Do not disturb your fancy with
thoughts of the Reign of Terror: that did not begin till four years later. Burke's great
philippic contains no complaint of the Constituent Assembly having interfered with
us, or meditated forcing its reforms upon other countries. It gives utterance to no
suspicion of a warlike tendency on the side of the French. On the contrary, the author
of the Reflections, in a speech upon the army estimates in the House of Commons on
the 9th of February of this year (1790), declared that the French army was rendered
an army for every other purpose than that of defence; describing the French soldiers
as base hireling mutineers, and mercenary sordid deserters, wholly destitute of any
honourable principle; alleging, on the same occasion, that France is at this time in a
political light to be considered as expunged out of the system of Europe; and he
asserted that the French had done their business for us as rivals in a way in which
twenty Ramilies or Blenheims could never have done it.
What, then, was the ground on which he assailed the French Government with a force
of invective that drew from Fox six years later the following tribute to its fatal
influence?
In a most masterly performance, he has charmed all the world with the brilliancy of
his genius, fascinating the country with the powers of his eloquence, and in as far as
that cause went to produce this effect, plunged the country into all the calamities
consequent upon war. I admire the genius of the man, and I admit the integrity and
usefulness of his long public life; I cannot, however, but lament that his talents, when
in my opinion they were directed most beneficially to the interest of his country,
produced very little effect, and that when he espoused sentiments different from those
which I hold to be wise and expedient, then his exertions should have been crowned
with a success that I deplore.
Read this famous performance again; and then, having freed your mind from the
effects of its gorgeous imagery, and fascinating style, ask yourself what grounds it
affords, what facts it contains to justify even an angry remonstrance, still less to lead
to a war. From beginning to end it is an indictment against the representatives of the
French people, for having presumed to pursue a course, in a strictly domestic matter,
contrary to what Mr. Burke and the English, who are assumed to be infallible judges,
held to be the wisest policy. Everything is brought to the test of our own practice, and
condemned or approved in proportion as it is in opposition to or in harmony with
British example. The Constituent Assembly is charged with robbery, usurpation,
imposture, cheating, violence, and tyranny, for presuming to abolish the law of
primogeniture, or appropriate their Church lands to secular purposes, making religion
a charge upon the State; or limit to a greater degree than ourselves the prerogative of
the Crown; or establish universal suffrage as the basis of their representation; changes
which however unsuitable they may have been to the habits and dispositions of
Englishmen were yet such as have not been found incompatible with the prosperity of
the people of America, and which to a large extent are practically applied to the
government of our own colonies.
But let us see what was done besides by this Assembly. Liberty of religious worship
to its fullest extent was secured; torture abolished; trial by jury and publicity of courts
of law were established; lettres-de-cachet abolished; the nobles and clergy made
liable in common with other classes to taxation; the most oppressive imposts, such as
those on salt, tobacco, the taille, &c., suppressed; the feudal privileges of the nobles
extinguished; access to the superior ranks of the army, heretofore monopolised by the
privileged class, made free to all; and the same rule applied to all civil employments.
I dwell on these particulars, because it was from this sweeping list of reforms,
effected by the Constituent Assembly of France, and the sympathy which they excited
amongst the more active and intelligent of our liberal politicians, that the war between
the two countries really sprung. It was not to put down the Reign of Terror that we
entered upon hostilities. That would have been no legitimate object for a war. But the
Reign of Terror did not commence till nearly a year after the war began. Our
indignation was not excited to blows in 1793, by the madness which afterwards
possessed the National Convention, and which manifested itself in the alteration of
the Calendar, the abolition of Christianity, and, finally, in the deposition of the Deity
Himself. These were the consequences, not the causes of war. No, the war was
entered upon to prevent the contagion of those principles which were put forth in such
captivating terms in 1789 and 1790 by the Constituent Assembly of France. The
ruling class in England took alarm at a revolution going on in a neighbouring state
where the governing body had abolished all hereditary titles, appropriated the Church
lands to State purposes, and decreed universal suffrage as the basis of the
representative system. If, says Alison,? the changes in France were regarded with
favour by one, they were looked on with utter horror by another class of the
community. The majority of the aristocratic body, all the adherents of the Church, all
the holders of office under the Monarchy, in general, the great bulk of the opulent
ranks of society, beheld them with apprehension or aversion.
From this moment the friends and opponents of the French Revolution formed
themselves into opposing parties, whose conduct, says Sir W. Scott, resembled that
of rival factions at a play, who hiss and applaud the actors on the stage as much from
party spirit as from real critical judgment; while every instant increases the probability
that they will try the question by actual force. Strange that to neither party should it
have occurred that to the twenty-four millions of Frenchmen interested in the issue,
might be left the task of framing their own government, without the intervention of
the people of England; and that the circumstance of a peculiar form of Constitution
having been found suitable for one country, did not necessarily prove that it would be
acceptable to the other!
But the Revolution in France produced a more decisive impression on the despotic
powers of the Continent. As soon as the democratic measures of the Constituent
Assembly were accomplished, and the powers of the King made subordinate to the
will of the representative body, the neighbouring potentates took the alarm, and began
to concert measures for enabling Louis XVI. to recover at least a part of his lost
prerogatives. The Emperor of Germany, Leopold, the most able and enlightened
Sovereign of Europe, who, as Grand Duke of Tuscany had carried out many of those
great economical and legal reforms which constitute the pride of modern statesmen,
took the lead in these unwarrantable acts of intervention in the affairs of the French
people. His relationship to the Queen of Louis XVI. (for they were both the offspring
of Maria Theresa) afforded, however, an amiable plea for his conduct, which was not
shared by his Royal confederates. Almost every crowned head on the Continent was
now covertly or openly conspiring against the principle of self-government in France;
and even the Sovereign of England, under the title of King of Hanover, was supposed
to be represented at some of their private conferences. The result was the famous
Declaration of Pilnitz, put forth in the names of the Emperor and the King of Prussia,
in which they declared conjointly, That they consider the situation of the King of
France as a matter of common interest to all the European Sovereigns. They hope that
the reality of that interest will be duly appreciated by the other powers, whose
assistance they will invoke, and that in consequence, they will not decline to employ
their forces conjointly with their Majesties, in order to put the King of France in a
situation to lay the foundation of a monarchical government, conformable alike to the
rights of Sovereigns and the well-being of the French nation. In that case, the Emperor
and the King are resolved to act promptly with the forces necessary to attain their
common end. In the meantime, they will give the requisite orders for their troops to
hold themselves in immediate readiness for active service.
It is all-important to observe the date of this DeclarationAugust 27, 1791for upon
the date depends entirely the question whether France or the Allied Powers were the
authors and instigators of the war. Up to this period the French were wholly engrossed
in their own internal reforms, and had not given the slightest ground for suspecting
that they meditated an act of hostility against any foreign power. Whilst employed in
the extension and security of her liberties, says Mr. Baines, in his able and candid
history of these events, amidst the struggle with a reluctant monarch, a discontented
priesthood, and a hostile nobility, she was menaced at the same time by a sudden and
portentous combination of the two great military statesPrussia under the dominion
of Frederic William, and Austria under the Emperor Leopold, brother to Marie
Antoinette, queen of France. The French were wholly unprepared for war. Not only
were their finances in a ruinous statethe army had fallen into disorder; for whilst the
common soldiers were enthusiastic partisans of the Revolution, the officers, who were
all of the class of nobles, were often its violent enemies, and many of them had fled
the kingdom. Great as was at that time the dread of French principles, no foreign
power felt any fear of the physical force of France; for everybody shared the opinion
of Burke, that that country had reduced itself to a state of abject weakness by its
revolutionary excesses.
But the best proof that the French Government had not given any good ground of
offence to foreign powers, is to be found in the fact that the declaration of the Allied
Sovereigns contains no complaint of the kind. Their sole object, as avowed by them in
this and subsequent manifestoes, was to restore the King to the prerogatives of which
he had been deprived by his people. It needs no argument now to prove that this threat
of an armed intervention in the internal affairs of France was tantamount to a
declaration of war. Compare this conduct of the despotic powers in 1791 with the
abstinence from all interferencenay, the punctilious disavowal of all right to
interferein the domestic affairs of France in 1848, when the changes in the
government of that country were of a far more sudden and startling character than
those which had taken place at the time of the Declaration of Pilnitz.
These proceedings of the Allied Powers were not sufficient to divert the French from
the all-absorbing domestic struggle in which they were involved. No acts of hostility
immediately followed. The wise Leopold, who wished to support the authority of the
King of France by other means than war, now exerted himself to assemble a congress
of all the great powers of Europe, with a view to agree to a form of government for
France. Whilst busying himself with this scheme, death put a sudden close to his
reign, and his less prudent and pacific successor soon brought matters to extremities.
In the meantime Russia, Sweden, Sardinia, and Spain, assumed a more and more
hostile attitude towards France. It was, however, from the side of Germany where
twenty thousand emigrant French nobles were menacing their native country with
invasion, that the chief danger was apprehended; and it was to the Emperor that the
French Government addressed itself for a categorical explanation of its intentions.
The note in answer demanded the re-establishment of the French monarchy on the
basis which had been rejected by the nation in 1789; it required the restoration of the
Church lands, part of which had been sold; and it ignored all that had been done by
the Constituent Assembly during the last two years. But I will give a description of
the Note by one whose leaning to the French will not be suspected.? The demands of
the Austrian Court went now, when fully explained, so far back upon the Revolution,
that a peace negotiated upon such terms must have laid France and all its various
parties (with the exception of a few of the First Assembly) at the foot of the
sovereign, and, what might be more dangerous, at the mercy of the restored
emigrants. The consequences of this Note may be described in the language of the
same author. The Legislative Assembly received these extravagant terms as an insult
on the national dignity; and the King, whatever might be his sentiments as an
individual, could not, on this occasion, dispense with the duty his office as
constitutional monarch imposed on him. Louis, therefore, had the melancholy task of
proposing to an Assembly filled with the enemies of his throne and person, a
declaration of war against his brother-in-law the Emperor.
Thus began a war which, if not the longest, was the bloodiest and most costly that
ever afflicted mankind. Whatever faults or crimes may be fairly chargeable upon the
French nation for the excesses and cruelties of the Revolution up to this time (April,
1792) it cannot be with justice made responsible for the commencement of the war.
What might have happened if foreign governments had abstained from all
interference, has frequently been a topic of speculation and hypothetical prophecy
with those who, whilst admitting that the French were not the aggressors, are yet
unwilling to allow that war could have been avoided. If such speculations were worth
pursuing, surely the experience we have since had in France and other countries
would lead to the conclusion that a nation, if unmolested from without, is never so
little prone to meddle with its neighbours as when involved in the difficulties,
dangers, and embarrassments of an internal revolution. But we have to deal with facts
and experiences, and they prove that in the case before us France was the aggrieved,
and not the aggressive, party.
It is true that France was the first to declare war; which is a proof that she had more
respect for the usages and laws of nations than her enemies; for they were making
formidable preparations for an invasion, under the plea of restoring order, and re-
establishing the King on his throne, with the view, as they pretended, of benefiting the
French people. They would not have declared war against France, but against the
oppressors of France, as they chose to term the Legislative Assembly. The resistance
they met with proved that they were opposed by the whole French nation; and,
therefore, the only plea put forth in their justification fails them in the hands of the
historian.
On the 25th July following, the Duke of Brunswick, when, on the eve of invading
France, with an army of 80,000 Austrian and Prussian troops, and a formidable band
of emigrant French nobles, issued a manifesto, in the name of Austria and Prussia, in
which he states his conviction that the majority of the inhabitants of France wait with
impatience the moment when succour shall arrive, to declare themselves openly
against the odious enterprises of their oppressors. To afford a full knowledge of the
objects of the invaders, and of the atrocious spirit which animated them, I give the
following extract from the 8th article of this manifesto:
The city of Paris and all its inhabitants, without distinction, shall be called upon to
submit instantly, and without delay, to the King, to set that prince at full liberty, and
to ensure to him and all the royal persons that inviolability and respect which are due,
by the laws of nature and of all nations, to sovereigns; their Imperial and Royal
Majesties making personally responsible for all events, on pain of losing their heads,
pursuant to military trials, without hope of pardon, all the members of the National
Assembly, of the Departments, of the Districts, of the Municipality, and of the
National Guards of Paris, Justices of the Peace, and others whom it may concern. And
their Imperial and Royal Majesties further declare, on the faith and word of Emperor
and King, that if the palace of the Tuileries be forced or insulted, if the least violence
be offered, the least outrage done, their Majesties, the King, the Queen, and the Royal
Family, if they be not immediately placed in safety, and set at liberty, they will inflict
on those who shall deserve it the most exemplary and ever memorable avenging
punishment, by giving up the city of Paris to military execution, and exposing it to
total destruction.
In an additional declaration, published two days later, after declaring that he makes no
alteration in the 8th article of the former manifesto, he adds, in case the King, Queen,
or any member or the Royal Family should be carried off by any of the factions, that
all the places and towns whatsoever, which shall not have opposed their passage, and
shall not have stopped their proceeding, shall incur the same punishments as those
inflicted on the inhabitants of Paris; and the route which shall be taken by those who
carry off the King and the Royal Family shall be marked with a series of exemplary
punishments, justly due to the authors and abettors of crimes for which there is no
remission.
Let it be borne in mind that these proclamations, worthy of Timoor or Attila, were
issued at a moment when Louis XVI. was still exercising the functions of a
Constitutional Sovereign in France; for it was not till the 10th of August that his
palace was assailed by the armed populace, and he and his family were consigned to a
prison. And here, in taking leave of the belligerents on the Continentfor my task is
confined to the investigation of the origin, and not the progress of the warlet it be
observed that there is not a writer, whether French or English, who, in recording
historically the dismal catalogue of crimes which from this time for a period of three
years disgraced the domestic annals of France, does not attribute the ferocity of the
people, and the atrocities committed by them, in a large degree, to the proclamation of
the Duke of Brunswick, and the subsequent invasion of the French territory.
There is nothing so certain to extinguish the magnanimity, which is the natural
attribute of great multitudes of men, conscious of their strength, as the suspicion of
treachery on the part of those to whom they are opposed. It is under the excitement of
this passion that the most terrible sacrifices to popular vengeance have been made.
The names of De Witt and Artevelde are remarkable among the victims to popular
suspicion. But never was this feeling excited to such a state of frenzy as in Paris on
the first news of the successes of the invading armies. The King, the nobility, the
clergy, and all the opulent classes were suspected of being in correspondence with the
foreigner; and the terrors of the populace pictured the Austrians already at the gates of
Paris, and the royalists pouring forth to welcome them and to offer their aid in the
vengeance which was to follow. It was under this impression of treachery that the
horrible massacre of the political prisoners, on the 2nd of September, took place.
But I prefer to give the testimony of a writer who will have little sympathy, probably,
for the main argument of this letter:
No doubt, says Alison,? can now exist that the interference of the Allies
augmented the horrors and added to the duration of the Revolution. All its bloodiest
excesses were committed during or after an alarming, but unsuccessful, invasion by
the allied forces. The massacres of September 2nd were perpetrated when the public
mind was excited to the highest degree by the near approach of the Duke of
Brunswick, and the worst days of the government of Robespierre were immediately
after the defection of Dumourier and the battle of Nerwinde threatened the rule of the
Jacobins with destruction. Nothing but a sense of public danger could have united the
factions who then strove with so much exasperation against each other; the peril of
France alone could have induced the people to submit to the sanguinary rule which so
long desolated its plains. The Jacobins maintained their ascendancy by constantly
representing their cause as that of national independence, by stigmatising their
enemies as the enemies of the country; and the patriots wept and suffered in silence,
lest by resistance they should weaken the state and cause France to be erased from
among the nations.
If facts have any logical bearing upon human affairs, I think I have shown that the war
was provoked by the allied powers. Let us now turn to the part performed by England
in the events which followed.
From the moment of the appearance of Burke's famous Reflections in 1790, the
character, objects, and proceedings of the Constituent Assembly occupied every day
more intensely the attention of the English public. The country took sides, and
politicians attacked or defended, according to their own views and aspirations, the
conduct of the leaders of the Revolution. Not only were the columns of the
newspapers occupied with this all-engrossing topic, but the press teemed with
pamphlets and volumes in support of, or in opposition to, Burke's production. The
most masterly of the latter class was the Vindici Galli of Sir James Macintosh,
which advocated the fundamental principles of freedom and humanity with a far
closer logic and a style scarcely less attractive than that of his great opponent. By
degrees the character of the liberal party, comprising the Whigs and Dissenters,
became involved to some extent in the fate of the Revolution, and their opponents
took care to heap upon them all the odium which attached to the disorders and
excesses of the French people. When the Jacobins, as the ultra party were nicknamed,
became powerful in France, that detestable name was assigned to the English
reformers by their Tory enemies, who, holding as they did the stamp of fashion in
their hands, could give general currency to their damaging epithets.
But gradually, and almost imperceptibly, a change came over the character of the
controversy. In a couple of years the tone of the dominant classes had altered, first
from cold criticism upon the Revolution to fierce invectives, then to menaces, and
finally to the cry for war, until at last the Tories and Liberals, instead of being merely
contending commentators upon French politics were involved in a fierce contest with
each other upon the question of peace or war with the government of France. From
that time all that remained of the liberal party, thinned as it was by defection, and
headed heroically by Fox, ranged themselves on the side of peace. The cry of peace,
said Windham? (Secretary at War), proceeded from the Jacobin party in this country,
and although every one who wished for peace was not a Jacobin, yet every Jacobin
wished for peace.
There is every reason to suppose that Pitt would have individually preferred peace.
By a commercial treaty which he had entered into with France a few years previously
he had greatly extended the trading relations of the two countries, and it is known that
he was bent upon some important plans of financial and commercial reform. Upon the
meeting of Parliament in 1792, he proposed reduced estimates for our military
establishments, and nothing boded the approach of war. The governing class in this
country shared the opinions of Mr. Burke as to the powerless condition to which
France had reduced herself by her internal convulsion. A veteran army of nearly
100,000 men, under experienced generals, was preparing to invade that country,
which, torn by civil strife, with a bankrupt exchequer, and with the court, aristocracy,
and clergy secretly favouring the enemy, seemed to offer a certain triumph to its
assailants. Little doubt was felt that one campaign would restore order to France.
But the Duke of Brunswick's atrocious proclamation had produced upon the French
people an effect very different from that which was expected. It is thus described by
Alison:? A unanimous spirit of resistance burst forth in every part of France. The
military preparations were redoubled; the ardour of the multitude was raised to the
highest pitch. The manifesto of the allied powers was regarded as unfolding the real
designs of the court and the emigrants. Revolt against the throne appeared the only
mode of maintaining their liberties or preserving their independence; the people of
Paris had no choice between victory or death.
The campaign which followed proved disastrous to the invaders, and in September the
Duke of Brunswick was in full retreat from French territory. Soon afterwards
Dumourier gained the battle of Jemmappes, and took possession of the Austrian
Netherlands. On the Rhine and the frontier of Savoy the French armies were also
successful.
An instantaneous change of policy now took place in England. The Government had
looked on in silence, or with merely an occasional protestation of neutrality, whilst
the allied armies were preparing to invade, and, as everybody believed, to occupy the
French territory. But no sooner did the news of French victories arrive than the tone of
our ministers instantly changed, and even Pitt, with all his cautiousness, was so
thrown off his guard, that he disclosed the true object of the war which followed:
Those opinions, said he,? which the French entertained, were of the most
dangerous nature; they were opinions professed by interest, inflamed by passion,
propagated by delusion, which their success had carried to the utmost excess, and had
contributed to render still more dangerous. For, would the Right Honourable
Gentleman tell him that the French opinions received no additional weight from the
success of their armies? Was it possible to separate between the progress of their
opinions and the success of their armies? It was evident that the one must influence
the other, and that the diffusion of their principles must keep pace with the extent of
their victories. He was not afraid of the progress of French principles in this country,
unless the defence of the country should be previously undermined by the
introduction of those principles.
And in the same speech he thus particularises the objects of his solicitude:
They had seen, within two or three years, a revolution in France, founded upon
principles which were inconsistent with every regular government, which were hostile
to hereditary monarchy, to nobility, to all the privileged orders, and to every sort of
popular representation, short of that which would give to every individual a voice in
the election of representatives.
The militia was now suddenly embodied, and Parliament was summoned to meet on
the 13th of December. Before, however, we refer to this, the closing scene of the
peace, it is necessary for a correct understanding of our relationship with France to
take a review of the correspondence which was at the same time going on between
our Foreign Secretary and M. Chauvelin, the French ambassador at London. Here
again, we must pay particular attention to dates.?
The correspondence commences with a letter, dated May 12, 1792, from M.
Chauvelin to Lord Grenville, explaining the cause of the war between France and the
Emperor, and complaining in the name of the King of the French that the Emperor
Leopold had promoted a great conspiracy against France.
On the 18th June, 1792, M. Chauvelin alludes at greater length, in a letter to Lord
Grenville, to the coalition formed on the Continent against France, and asks the
British Government to exert its influence to stop the progress of that confederacy, and
especially to dissuade from all accession to this project all those of the allies of
England whom it may be wished to draw into it!
In reply to this letter, Lord Grenville declines to interfere with the allies of this
country, to put an end to the confederacy against France, alleging that the
intervention of his counsels or of his good offices cannot be of use unless they should
be desired by all the parties interested. [In direct contradiction to his, was the
following passage in the King's speech, January 31, of this very year, 1792, on
opening the session:Our intervention has also been employed with a view to
promote a pacification between the Empress of Russia and the Porte; and conditions
have been agreed upon between us and the former of these powers which we
undertook to recommend to the Porte, as the re-establishment of peace on such terms
appeared to be, under all the circumstances, a desirable event for the general interests
of Europe.]
On the news of the dethronement of the King of France in August, M. Chauvelin
received notice, as has been before seen, that he would no longer be recognised by the
English Government in his official character; and there was an interval of several
months during which the correspondence was suspended. On the 13th December, as
before stated, Parliament was hastily assembled: the King's speech announced that the
militia had been embodied, and recommended an increase of the army and navy; it
complained of the aggressive conduct of the French, and their disregard of the rights
of neutral nations. [Not a syllable had been said in disapproval of the conduct of the
allied powers when they began the unprovoked attack on France, an attack the
complete failure of which was now known in England.] The speeches of the ministers
and the majority in Parliament, in the debate on the address, were of a most warlike
character. On the 27th of December, 1792, after these occurrences (do not for a
moment lose sight of the dates), M. Chauvelin renews the correspondence with Lord
Grenville. He begins by saying that he makes his communication at the request of his
own Government. After adducing the fact of his having remained in England since
August, notwithstanding the recall of our ambassador Lord Gower from Paris, as a
proof of the desire the French Government had to live on good terms with his
Britannic Majesty, he proceeds to complain that a character of ill-will to which he is
yet unwilling to give credit, has been observable in the measures recently adopted by
the British Government, and he asks whether France ought to consider England as a
neutral power or an enemy. But in asking from the ministers of his Britannic Majesty
a frank and open explanation as to their intentions with regard to France, the
Executive Council of the French Government is unwilling they should have the
smallest remaining doubt as to the disposition of France towards England, and as to
its desire of remaining at peace with her; it has ever been desirous of answering
beforehand all the reproaches which they may be tempted to make in justification of a
rupture. He then proceeds to offer explanations upon the three reasons which he
surmises might weigh with the English, and lead them to break with the French
Republic. The first has reference to the decree of the National Convention of the
19th November, offering fraternity to all people who wish to recover their liberty; the
next, the opening of the Scheldt, consequent upon the conquest of the Austrian
Netherlands; and thirdly, the violation of the territory of Holland. With respect to the
decree of the 19th November, offering assistance to all people wishing for liberty, he
said: The National Convention never meant that the French Republic should favour
insurrections, should espouse the quarrels of a few seditious persons, or in a word
should endeavour to excite disturbances in any neutral or friendly country whatever.
He then proceeds to sayFrance ought to and will respect, not only the
independence of England, but even that of those of her allies with whom she is not at
war. The undersigned has therefore been charged formally to declare that she will not
attack Holland so long as that power shall on its side confine itself towards her within
the bounds of a strict neutrality. He then refers to the only other question, the
opening of the Scheldt, a question irrevocably decided by reason and justice, of
small importance in itself, and on which the opinion of England, and perhaps of
Holland itself, is sufficiently known to render it difficult to make it seriously the
single subject of war.
M. Chauvelin says, in conclusion, He hopes that the ministers of his Britannic
Majesty will be brought back by the explanations which this note contains, to ideas
more favourable to the re-union of the two countries, and that they will not have
occasion, for the purpose of returning to them, to consider the terrible responsibility
of a declaration of war, which will incontestably be their own work, the consequences
of which cannot be otherwise than fatal to the two countries, and to human nature in
general, and in which a generous and free people cannot long consent to betray their
own interests, by serving as an auxiliary and a reinforcement to a tyrannical
coalition.
The reply of Lord Grenville, dated December 31, begins in the following haughty
fashion:I have received, Sir, from you a note, in which, styling yourself minister
plenipotentiary of France, you communicate to me, as the King's Secretary of State,
the instructions which you state to have yourself received from the Executive Council
of the French Republic. You are not ignorant, that since the unhappy events of the
10th August, the King has thought proper to suspend all official communication with
France. The rest of the letter repels with little ceremony the advances of the French
minister, and subjects his pleas and excuses to a cold and incredulous criticism. It
reiterates the complaints respecting the Decree of the 19th November, the opening of
the Scheldt, and the violation of the territory of Holland. If France, said Lord
Grenville, is really desirous of maintaining friendship and peace with England, she
must shew herself disposed to renounce her views of aggression and aggrandisement,
and confine herself within her own territory, without insulting other governments,
without disturbing their tranquillity, or violating their rights. [It would have added
much to the force of this remonstrance if a similar tone had been taken a year earlier,
when the famous Declaration of Pilnitz was published.]
M. Chauvelin, notwithstanding this repulse, again addresses Lord Grenville, January
7, 1793, bringing under his notice the Alien bill just introduced into Parliament, and
which contained, as he alleged, provisions, so far as French citizens were concerned,
inconsistent with the letter and spirit of the treaty of commerce entered into by France
and England in 1786; and he concludes by asking to be informed whether, under the
general denomination of foreigners, in the bill on which the Houses are occupied, the
Government of Great Britain means likewise to include the French. This letter is
returned to the writer by Lord Grenville, the same day, accompanied with a short
note, declaring it to be totally inadmissible, M. Chauvelin assuming therein a
character which is not acknowledged.
Unable to obtain a hearing in his official capacity, M. Chauvelin abandons the former
style of his letters, which ranthe undersigned minister plenipotentiary, &c., and
now addresses a letter to Lord Grenville, beginning My Lord, and dropping all
allusion to his own diplomatic quality. In this letter, he complains that several vessels
in British ports freighted with grain for the French Government had been stopped,
contrary to law; he has been informed by respectable authorities that the custom-
houses had received orders to permit the exportation of foreign wheat to all ports
except those of France; and he goes on to say, I should the first moment of my
knowing it, have waited upon you, my Lord, to be assured from yourself of its
certainty, or its falsehood, if the determination taken by his Britannic Majesty, in the
present circumstance, to break off all communication between the governments of the
two countries, had not rendered friendly and open steps the more difficult in
proportion as they became the more necessary.
And he adds:But I considered, my Lord, when the question of war or peace arose
between two powerful nations, that which manifested the desire of attending to all
explanations, that which strove the longest to preserve the last link of union and
friendship, was the only one which appeared truly worthy and truly great. I beseech
you, my Lord, in the name of public faith, in the name of justice and of humanity, to
explain to me facts which I will not characterise, and which the French nation would
take for granted by your silence only, or by the refusal of an answer.
Lord Grenville's answer, dated 9th January, 1793, evades the question:I do not
know, says he, in what capacity you address me, in the letter which I have received;
but in every case it would be necessary to know the resolutions which shall have been
taken in France, in consequence of what has already passed before I can enter into any
new explanations, especially with respect to measures founded, in a great degree, on
those motives of jealousy and uneasiness which I have already detailed to you.
Nothing daunted, the indefatigable Frenchman renews the correspondence on the
11th. But having resumed the diplomatic style of the undersigned minister
plenipotentiary, his letter, which states that the French Republic cannot but regard
the conduct of the English Government as a manifest infraction of the treaty of
commerce concluded between the two powers, and that, consequently, France ceases
to consider herself as bound by that treaty, and that she regards it from this moment as
broken and annulled, was returned to him by Mr. Aust, a clerk, probably, in the
Foreign Office, with the following note:
Mr. Aust is charged to send back to M. Chauvelin the enclosed paper received
yesterday at the office for Foreign Affairs.
Next, we have a letter from M. Chauvelin to Lord Grenville, written in an unofficial
form, dated January 12th, stating that he had just received a messenger from Paris,
and soliciting a personal interview; which request is granted, on condition that the
communication be put upon paper. On the following day M. Chauvelin communicates
to Lord Grenville a copy of a paper which he had received from M. Le Brun, the
Foreign Minister of France. This dispatch contains the strongest expressions of a
desire to maintain amicable relations with England. The sentiments of the French
nation towards the English, says the Foreign Minister of France, have been
manifested during the whole course of the Revolution, in so constant, so unanimous a
manner, that there cannot remain the smallest doubt of the esteem which it has vowed
them, and of its desire of having them for friends. He then proceeds to discuss, at
length, the several topics in dispute between the two countries. As respects the
obnoxious decree of the 19th November, every effort is made to explain away its
offensive meaning, and it is at last admitted that the object contemplated might,
perhaps, be dispensed with by the National Convention, that it was scarcely worth the
while to express it, and it did not deserve to be made the object of a particular
decree.
Assuming that the British Government is satisfied with the declaration made on the
part of the French, relative to Holland, the paper proceeds, at length, into the question
of the opening of the Scheldt, which is justified by an appeal to the rights of nature
and of all the nations of Europe. The Emperor of Germany concluded the treaty for
giving the exclusive right of the navigation of the Scheldt to the Dutch without
consulting the Belgians. The Emperor, to secure the possession of the Low
Countries, sacrificed, without scruple, the most inviolable of rights. And, further,
France enters into war with the House of Austria, expels it from the Low Countries,
and calls back to freedom those people whom the Court of Vienna had devoted to
slavery. The paper proceeds to say that France does not aim at the permanent
occupation of the Low Countries, and that after the close of the war, if England and
Holland still attach some importance to the re-closing of the Scheldt, they may put the
affair into a direct negotiation with Belgium. If the Belgians, by any motive whatever,
consent to deprive themselves of the navigation of the Scheldt, France will not oppose
it.
Lord Grenville in his reply to this letter (January 18, 1793) begins by saying, I have
examined, Sir, with the greatest attention, the paper which you delivered to me on the
13th of this month. I cannot conceal from you that I have found nothing satisfactory in
the result of that note. The rest of the letter is either a repetition of the former
complaints, or an attempt to extract fresh sources of dispute from the preceding
communication. After the exchange of two other unimportant letters, we come to the
dnouement. On the 24th January, on the news reaching London of the execution of
Louis XVI., Lord Grenville transmits to M. Chauvelin the order of the Privy Council,
requiring him to leave the country in eight days.
I have given these copious extracts from this most portentous of all diplomatic
correspondence, not to exonerate you from the trouble of reading the remainder, for
every word ought to be studied by those who wish to understand the origin of the war,
but to enable you to form a correct opinion of the animus which influenced the two
parties. Contrast the conciliatory, the almost supplicatory tone of the one, with the
repulsive and haughty style of the other, and then askwhich was bent upon
hostilities, and which on peace? Recollect that these correspondents were the
representatives respectively of sixteen millions of British and twenty-four millions of
French, and then say whether the insolent de-haut-en-bas treatment received by the
latter could have been intended for any other purpose but to provoke a war. Observe
that the more urgent the Frenchman became in his desire to explain away the ground
of quarrel, the more resolute was the English negotiator to close up the path to
reconciliation;forcing upon us the conviction that what the British Government
really dreaded at that moment was, not the hostility but, the friendship of France.
And, now, a word as to the alleged grounds of the rupture. It must be observed, in the
first place, that there is no complaint on our part of any hostile act, or even word
being directed against ourselves. The bombastic decree? of the National
Conventionone of the midnight declarations of that excited bodywas put
prominently in the bill of indictment, but it was never alleged that it was specially
levelled at this country. It was aimed at the governments of the Continent in
retaliation for their conspiracies against the French Revolution. If you invade us with
bayonets, we will invade you with liberties,was the language addressed by the
orators of the Convention to the despotic powers. That this decree was, however, a
fair ground of negotiation by our Government cannot be denied, and it is evident from
the desire of the French minister to explain away its obnoxious meaning, going so far
even as to admit that perhaps it ought not to have been passed, that a little more
remonstrance in an earnest and peaceful spirit, would have led to a satisfactory
explanation on this point. In fact, within a few months of this time the decree was
rescinded.
With respect to the Dutch right to a monopoly of the Scheldt:if that was really one
of the objects of the war, the twenty-two years of hostilities might have been spared;
for if there was any one thing, besides the abolition of the slave trade, which the
Congress of Vienna effected at the close of the war, to the satisfaction of all parties,
and with the hearty concurrence of England, it was setting free the navigation of the
great rivers of Europe. Nothing need be said about the remaining question of the
inviolability of the territory of Holland, inasmuch as the French minister offered to
give us a satisfactory pledge upon that point. I may merely add that the Dutch
Government abstained from making any demand upon England to sustain its claim to
the exclusive navigation of the Scheldt, and wisely so:for it probably foresaw what
happened in the war which followed, when the French, having taken possession of
Holland, where they were welcomed by a large part of the population as friends, and
having turned the Dutch fleet against us, in less than three years, we seized all the
principal colonies of that country, and some of them (to our cost) we retain to the
present day.
Whilst through this official correspondence the French Government was
endeavouring to remove the causes of war, other and less formal means were resorted
to for accomplishing the same end. Attached to the French embassy were several
individuals, selected for their popular address, their familiarity with the English
language, and their talent in conversation or as writers, who, by mixing in society, and
especially that of the Liberals, might, it was hoped, influence public opinion in favour
of peace. Amongst these was one who played the chief diplomatic part in the great
drama which was about to follow. The mission of M. de Talleyrand to London, says
M. Lamartine,? was to endeavour to fraternise the aristocratic principle of the
English constitution with the democratic principle of the French constitution, which it
was believed could be effected and controlled by an upper Chamber. It was hoped to
interest the statesmen of Great Britain in a revolution imitated from their own, which,
after having convulsed the people, was now being moulded in the hands of an
intelligent aristocracy.
Beyond the circles of the more ardent reformers, however, or the society of a few
philosophical thinkers, these semiofficial diplomatists made very little way. They
were coldly, and sometimes even uncivilly treated; as the following incident, in which
Talleyrand played a part, will shew. One evening all the members of the embassy,
with Dumont, went to Ranelagh, which was then frequented by the most respectable
classes of English society. As they entered, there was a murmur of voicesThere is
the French embassy! All eyes were fixed on them with a curiosity not mixed with
any expression of good-will; and presently the crowd fell back on both sides, as if the
Frenchmen had the plague upon them, and left them all the promenade to
themselves.? This incident occurred before the dethronement of the King in August;
and the writer from whom the above is quoted in the Pictorial History of England,
after labouring through several pages to prove that the French were the authors of the
war, refutes himself with great navet by adding, The public feeling which would
have driven England into a war in spite of any ministry, shewed itself in a marked
manner even before the horrors of the 10th August and the massacres of September.
The feeling in France towards England was the very opposite of this, up to the time
when the hostile sentiments of our Government became known, and, even then, there
was a strong disposition to separate the aristocracy from the people, and to attribute to
the former all the enmity which characterised our policy towards them. Previously to
the Revolution, English tastes had been largely adopted in France; and indeed so great
was at one time the disposition to imitate the amusements, dress, equipage, &c., of
Englishmen, that it had acquired the epithet of Anglomania. When political reform
became the engrossing thought of the nation, what so natural as that the French people
should turn a favourable eye to England, whose superior aptitude for self-government,
and more jealous love of personal liberty, they were ready then, as they are now, to
acknowledge. Never, therefore, was the sympathy for England so strong as at the
commencement of their Revolution. When the Declaration of Pilnitz, and the hostile
proceedings of the emigrant nobles at Coblentz in 1791, drew forth the indignant
denunciations of Brissot and other orators, and induced some of them to call for war
as the only means of putting an end to the clandestine correspondence which was
carried on between the conspirators without and the traitors within, no such feeling
was entertained towards England; and even after the breaking out of hostilities with
this country, so unpopular was the war, that the strongest reproach that one
unscrupulous faction could throw upon another was in mutual accusation of having
provoked it. This fact was at a subsequent period referred to by Lord Mornington,?
one of Pitt's supporters, as a proof that the British Government at least did not
provoke the war. Robespierre, said he, imputes it to Brissot; Brissot retorts it upon
Robespierre; the Jacobins charge it upon the Girondists; the Girondists recriminate
upon the Jacobins; the mountain thunders it upon the valley; and the valley re-echoes
it back against the mountain.
All facts, said Sheridan, with unanswerable force, in reply, tending to contradict
the assertion which the noble Lord professed to establish by them, and making still
plainer that there was no party in France which was not earnest to avoid a rupture with
this country, nor any party which we may not at this moment reasonably believe to be
inclined to put an end to hostilities.
I have said sufficient probably to satisfy you that France did not desire a collision
with England; and that the pretexts put forward by Lord Grenville in his
correspondence with M. Chauvelin were not sufficient grounds for the rupture. But I
will now redeem my pledge, and prove to you, from the admissions of the partisans of
the war, that the real motive was to put down opinions in France, or at least to prevent
the spread of them in this country.
Parliament, as I before stated, was hastily summoned for the 13th December, 1792.
The country stood on the verge of the most fearful calamity that could befall it. But
the mass of the people, whose passions and prejudices had been roused against their
old enemies the French, did not see the danger before them, and they were ready for a
war. At the same time, to quote the words of Sir Walter Scott,? the whole aristocratic
party, commanding a very large majority in both Houses of Parliament, became
urgent that war should be declared against France; a holy war, it said, against treason,
blasphemy, and murder; and a necessary war, in order to break off all connection
betwixt the French Government and the discontented part of our own subjects, who
could not otherwise be prevented from the most close, constant, and dangerous
intercourse with them. To add to the excitement, tales of plots and conspiracies were
circulated; additional fortifications were ordered for the Tower of London; and a large
armed force was drawn round the metropolis. Speaking of the efforts that were made
to create a panic in the public mind, Lord Lauderdale at a later period
observed:But is there a man in England ignorant that the most wicked arts have
been practised to irritate and mislead the multitude? Have not handbills, wretched
songs, infamous pamphlets, false and defamatory paragraphs in newspapers been
circulated with the greatest assiduity, all tending to rouse the indignation of this
country against France, with whom it has been long determined I fear to go to war?
To such low artifices are these mercenaries reduced, that they have both the folly and
audacity to proclaim that the New River water has been poisoned with arsenic by
French emissaries.
It must not be forgotten that at the very moment when all this preparation was being
made against an attack from the French, and when this panic in the public mind was
thus artfully created, M. Chauvelin was besieging the Foreign Office with proposals
for peace, and, when denied admittance at the front door, entered meekly at the back,
asking only to know on what terms, however humiliating, war with England might be
averted. The public knew nothing of this at the time, for diplomacy was then, as now,
a secret art; but the Government knew it.
The King's speech, at the opening of the session, began by saying, that having judged
it necessary to embody a part of the militia, he had, according to law, called
Parliament together. He then alluded to seditious practices and a spirit of tumult and
disorder, shewing itself in acts of riot and insurrection, which required the
interposition of a military force. Then followed an allusion to our happy
constitution, which seems a little misplaced in the midst of riot and insurrection; but
the King relied on the firm determination of Parliament to defend and maintain that
constitution which has so long protected the liberties, and promoted the happiness of
every class of my subjects. Next, there was a complaint against France for exciting
disturbances in foreign countries, disregarding the rights of neutral nations, and
pursuing views of conquest and aggrandisement. The speech then announced an
augmentation of the naval and military force, as necessary in the present state of
affairs, and best calculated, both to maintain internal tranquillity, and to render a firm
and temperate conduct effectual for preserving the blessings of peace.
The address, in reply to the speech, was carried without a division. The members who
were opposed to the war, spoke under the discouraging consciousness that, so far
from having that popular support and sympathy which could alone make their
opposition formidable, the advocates of peace were in as small a minority in the
country as in Parliament. On the first night of the session, after denouncing the panic
which had been artfully created, Mr. Fox said, I am not so ignorant of the present
state of men's minds, and of the ferment artfully created, as not to know that I am now
advancing an opinion likely to be unpopular. It is not the first time I have incurred the
same hazard. And, on a subsequent occasion, in a still more dejected tone, he said,?
I have done my duty in submitting my ideas to the House; and in doing this, I
cannot possibly have had any other motive than those of public duty. What were my
motives? Not to court the favour of ministers, or those by whom ministers are
supposed to be favoured; not to gratify my friends, as the debates in this House have
shewn; not to court popularity, for the general conversation, both within and without
these walls, has shewn that to gain popularity I must have held the opposite course.
The people may treat my house as they have done that of Dr. Priestleyas it is said
they have done more recently that of Mr. Walker.? My motive only was that they
might know what was the real cause of the war into which they are likely to be
plunged; and that they might know that it depended on a mere matter of form and
ceremony.
It is impossible to read the speeches of Fox, at this time, without feeling one's heart
yearn with admiration and gratitude for the bold and resolute manner in which he
opposed the war, never yielding and never repining, under the most discouraging
defeats; and, although deserted by many of his friends in the House, taunted with
having only a score of followers left, and obliged to admit that he could not walk the
streets without being insulted by hearing the charge made against him of carrying on
an improper correspondence with the enemy in France, yet bearing it all with
uncomplaining manliness and dignity. The annals of Parliament do not record a
nobler struggle in a nobler cause.
It may naturally be asked, why, with the popular opinions running thus strongly
against French principles, did the Government resort to such arts as have been
described, for creating a still greater panic in men's minds, or where was the motive
for going to war with the French Republic? But the wicked fleeth when no man
pursueth. The vaunted Constitution of that time was, so far as the House of
Commons was concerned, an insult to reason, an impudent fraud, which would not
bear discussion; and the borough-mongers, as they were afterwards called, were
trembling lest its real character might be exposed, if people were left at leisure to
examine it. What that character was, we have been, with infinite navet, informed by
one of its admirers. The Government of Great Britain, says Alison,? which was
supposed, by theoretical observers, to have been anterior to the great change of 1832,
a mixed constitution, in which the Crown, the Nobles, and the Commons mutually
checked and counteracted each other, was in reality an aristocracy, having a sovereign
for the executive, disguised under the popular forms of a republic. Although this
Government of false pretences had two extremes of society, the interested few and the
ignorant many, on its side; yet there was a small party of parliamentary reformers,
who, though stigmatised as Jacobins, Levellers, and Republicans, were active,
earnest, and able men, comprising in their body nearly all the intellect of the age; and
it was from the chimerical fear that these men would put themselves under the
influence of French politicians that the two countries were to be rent asunder by war.
Upon this point we have the ingenious avowal of a young statesman, who lived to fill
the highest office in the State. Mr. Jenkinson (afterwards Lord Liverpool),
said,He had heard it frequently urged that this was a period particularly
unfavourable to a war with France, on account of the number of discontented persons
amongst us in correspondence with the seditious of that country, who menaced and
endangered our government and constitution. That there was a small party
entertaining such designs he had very little doubt; and, from their great activity, he
also considered them as dangerous; but he confessed that this very circumstance, so
far from deterring him from war, became a kind of inducement. They might be
troublesome in times of peacethey might be tranquil in time of war; for as soon as
hostilities were commenced, the correspondence with the French must cease, and all
the resource they had would be to emigrate to that country, which would be a good
thing for this; or, remaining where they are, to conduct themselves like good citizens,
as that correspondence which by law was not punishable now, would in time of war
be treason.
The same motive for the war was at last avowed by him who had performed the part
of Peter the Hermit, in rousing the warlike spirit of the nation. Edmund Burke, who
from the year 1789, was possessed by a species of monomania upon the French
Revolution, took a prominent part in these discussions; indeed, whatever was the
subject before the House, if he rose to speak upon it, he was pretty certain to mount
his favourite hobby before he resumed his seat. Let the subject, the occasion, the
argument be what it may, said Mr. Francis,? he has but one way of treating it. War
and peace, the repair of a turnpike, the better government of nations, the direction of a
canal, and the security of the constitution are all alike in his contemplation: the French
Revolution is an answer to everything; the French Revolution is his everlasting theme,
the universal remedy, the grand specific, the never-failing panacea, the principal
burden of his song; and with this he treats us from day to day; a cold, flat, insipid hash
of the same dish, perpetually served up to us in different shapes, till at length with all
his cookery, the taste revolts, the palate sickens at it.
At length, on the discussion of the Alien Bill, Burke's powers of reason and
judgment seemed to be entirely overborne by a frenzied imagination. Drawing forth a
dagger and brandishing it in the air, he cast it with great vehemence of action on the
floor: It is my object, said he, to keep the French infection from this country: their
principles from our minds, and their daggers from our hearts! I vote for this bill,
because I believe it to be the means of saving my life and all our lives from the hands
of assassins; I vote for it because it will break the abominable system of the modern
pantheon, and prevent the introduction of French principles and French daggers.
When they smile I see blood trickling down their faces; I see their insidious
purposes,I see that the object of all their cajoling is blood! I now warn my
countrymen to beware of these execrable philosophers, whose only object it is to
destroy everything that is good here, and to establish immorality and murder by
precept and example!
And on a subsequent occasion,? immediately after the declaration of hostilities, he
declared his fixed opinion that if we continued at peace with France, there would not
be ten years of stability in the government of this country. Thus did he who first
sounded the tocsin of war, and led the public mind through each successive phase of
hostility, until he triumphed in the deadly struggle which had now begun, avow that
the object he sought was to avert the danger with which French principles menaced
the institutions of this country.
I must add one extract from a speech delivered by Mr. Windham, the leader of the
Whig seceders, who became Pitt's Secretary at War. It was delivered on the 1st
February, 1793, the day on which war was declared by France, but before that event
was known here. He agreed that in all probability the French had no wish at this
moment to go to war with this country, as they were not yet ready to do so; their
object seemed to be to take all Europe in detail, and we might be reserved to be the
last. Here the whole case as against ourselves is fully admitted by one of the most
determined advocates of the war. It is needless to add, that if we were justified in
going to war because we predicted that France would attack us at some future time,
there never need be a want of justification for a war.
But it is at a somewhat later period that we discover more clearly the real motives of
the war as acknowledged by its authors. In 1795, when hostilities had been carried on
for two years, with but little impression upon the enemy, and when the cry for peace
became general, there was less reserve in avowing the objects for which we had
entered upon war. In a speech in favour of peace, Mr. Wilberforce? said: With regard
to the probable consequences of pursuing the war, he considered them to be in their
nature uncertain. Heretofore it might justly be said to be carried on in order to
prevent the progress of French principles; but now there was much more danger of
their being strengthened by a general discontent, arising from a continuance of the
war, than from any importation of the principles themselves from France.
On a subsequent occasion, after the government of France had undergone a change,
and had passed into the hands of the Directory, and when the British ministry was
constrained by the general discontent to make a profession of willingness to negotiate
for peace, they were obliged, in order to justify themselves for having formerly
advocated war, to point to the altered, and as they alleged more settled, state of the
French Government as the cause of the change in their policy. Mr. Pitt saidI
certainly said that the war was not like others, occasioned by particular insult, or the
unjust seizure of territory, or the like, or undertaken to repel usurpation, connected
with principles calculated to subvert all government, and which, while they flourished
in their original force and malignity, were totally incompatible with the accustomed
relations of peace and amity. We professed also that many persons in that country felt
the pressure of the calamities under which it laboured, and were ready to co-operate
for the destruction of the causes which occasioned them.
In the debate in the House of Lords which followed this pacific message from the
King a more undisguised statement was made by one who, as a cabinet minister, had
the fullest opportunity of knowing the motives of those who entered upon the war.
Earl Fitzwilliam? said:The present war was of a nature different from all common
wars. It was commenced, not from any of the ordinary motives of policy and
ambition. It was expressly undertaken to restore order in France, and to effect the
destruction of the abominable system that prevailed in that country. Upon this
understanding it was that he had separated from some of those with whom he had
long acted in politics, and with other noble friends had lent aid to his Majesty's
ministers. Upon this understanding he had filled that situation which he some time
since held in the Cabinet. Knowing then on such authority the object of the war to
have been to restore order in France, he was somewhat surprised at the declaration in
the message that his Majesty was now prepared to treat for peace.
The Fitzwilliams have always had the habit of plain-speaking, though not of
invariably foreseeing all the logical consequences of what they say. Their honesty has,
however, been proverbial; and as in this case the speaker went to the unusual length of
giving evidence as a cabinet minister against his former colleagues, and was not
contradicted, we may take his statement as conclusive proof upon the question in
hand. But what must we think of the conduct of the government, and especially of Mr.
Pitt and Lord Grenville, in having thrown the responsibility of the war upon France
upon such pretences as the opening of the navigation of the Scheldt whilst at the same
time we have overwhelming evidence to show that they were determined to provoke a
collision for totally different objects? What will be said of it when our history is
written by some future Niebuhr? I could multiply quotations of a similar tendency to
the above, but I forbear from a conviction that no further evidence is required to prove
my case.
But there is one act of our government, illustrative of its motives in entering upon the
war, which I must not omit to mention. Shortly after the commencement of hostilities
(November, 1793) our naval forces took possession of Toulon, when Admiral Hood
and the British Commissioners published a proclamation, in the name of the King of
England, to the people of France, in which they declared in favour of monarchy in
France in the person of Louis XVII. But not a word did they say about the opening of
the navigation of the Scheldt or the pretended objects of the war. And about the same
time? the King of England published a declaration to the French nation, in which he
promises the suspension of hostilities, and friendship, security and protection to all
those who by declaring for monarchical government shall shake off the yoke of a
sanguinary anarchy. It is strange that our government did not see that this was as
much an act of intervention in the internal concerns of another people as anything
which had been done by the French Convention, and that, in fact, it was affording a
justification for every act of the kind perpetrated on the Continent, from the
Declaration of Pilnitz to the present moment.
In drawing this argument to a close, I have done nothing but prove the truth of a
statement made by a writer who has devoted far more time, labour, and learning to the
investigation of the subject than it is in my power to bestow. Considering that he is a
partisan of the war, and an admirer of the political system which it was designed to
uphold, I cannot but marvel at his candour, which I should the more admire if I were
sure that he has fully appreciated the logical consequences that flow from his
admissions. The following are the remarks of Sir A. Alison upon the origin of the
war:
In truth, the arguments urged by Government were not the only motives for
commencing the war. The danger they apprehended lay nearer home than the
conquest of the Republicans: it was not foreign subjugation so much as domestic
revolution that was dreaded if a pacific intercourse were any longer maintained with
France. Croyez-moi, said the Empress Catherine to Segur, in 1789, une guerre seule
peut changer la direction des esprits en France, les runir, donner un but plus utile aux
passions et rveiller le vrai patriotisme.?In this observation is contained the true
secret, and the best vindication of the revolutionary war. The passions were excited;
democratic ambition was awakened; the desire of power under the name of reform
was rapidly gaining ground among the middle ranks, and the institutions of the
country were threatened with an overthrow as violent as that which had recently taken
place in the French monarchy. In these circumstances the only mode of checking the
evil was by engaging in a foreign contest, by drawing off the ardent spirits into active
service, and, in lieu of the modern desire for innovation, rousing the ancient gallantry
of the British nation.
Of the moral sense which could permit an approval of the sentiments of the imperial
patroness of Suwarrow, I would rather not speak. But I wish that a copy of this extract
could be possessed by every man in England, that all might understand the true
secret of despots, which is to employ one nation in cutting the throats of another, so
that neither may have time to reform the abuses in their own domestic government. I
would say on the contrary, the true secret of the people is to remain at peace; and not
only so, but to be on their guard against false alarms about the intended aggressions of
their neighbours, which when too credulously believed, give to government all the
political advantages of a war, without its risks; for they keep men's minds in a
degrading state of fear and dependence, and afford the excuse for continually
increasing government expenditure.
One word only upon the objection that the French were the first to declare war. In the
present case, as in that of the Allied Powers on the Continent, to which we before
alluded, we were giving to ourselves all the advantages of a belligerent power by our
warlike preparations, without affording to the French the fair warning of a declaration
of war. The Government of France acted more in accordance with the recognised law
of nations in publishing the reasons why they were, contrary to their own wishes, at
war with England. The language and acts of Mr. Pitt were a virtual declaration of war.
Half as much said or done by a Prime Minister now would be enough to plunge all
Europe in flames. We have seen that the Militia was embodied, and the Parliament
suddenly assembled on the 13th December, 1792, when the King's speech
recommended an augmentation of the army and navy. On the 28th January, 1793,
upon the arrival of the news of the execution of the French king, not only was M.
Chauvelin, the French Minister, ordered to leave the kingdom in eight days, but the
King's message, which was sent to the House of Commons announcing this fact,
recommended a further augmentation of the land and sea forces. This increased
armament was not now wanted, as was professed to be the case on the 13th
December, for preserving the blessings of peace, but, to quote the words of the
Message, to enable his Majesty to take the most effectual measures, in the present
important conjuncture, for maintaining the security and rights of his own dominions;
for supporting his allies; and for opposing views of aggrandizement and ambition on
the part of France, which would be at all times dangerous to the general interests of
Europe, but are peculiarly so when connected with the propagation of principles
which lead to the violation of the most sacred duties, and are utterly subversive of the
peace and order of all civil society. Once more I must beg your attention to dates.
This message was delivered on the 28th January, 1793. Up to this time the French
Government had given undeniable proofs of desiring to preserve peace with England.
And it was not till after the delivery of this message to Parliament, after a peremptory
order had been given to their ambassador to leave England; after all these preparations
for war; and after the insulting speeches and menaces uttered by Mr. Pitt and the other
ministers in Parliament, which, as will be seen by referring to the debates of this time,
were of themselves sufficient to provoke hostilities, that the French Convention, by a
unanimous vote, declared war against England on the 1st February, 1793.
On the 11th February, the King sent a message to Parliament, in which he said he
relied with confidence on the firm and effectual support of the House of Commons,
and on the zealous exertions of a brave and loyal people in prosecuting a [when was
war ever acknowledged to be otherwise?] just and necessary war.
The wisdom of the advice of the Czarina Catherine was exemplified in what followed.
The war diverted men's minds from every domestic grievance. Hatred to the French
was the one passion henceforth cultivated. All political ameliorations were postponed;
Reform of Parliament, a question which had previously been so ripe that Pitt himself,
in company with Major Cartwright, attended public meetings in its favour, was put
aside for forty years; and even the voice of Wilberforce, pleading for the slave, was
for several successive sessions mute, amidst the death struggle which absorbed all the
passions and sympathies of mankind.
And now, my dear Sir, if you have done me the honour to read this long letter, I will
conclude with an appeal for your candid judgment upon the merits of the question
between us. Recollect that we are not discussing the professional claims of the Duke
of Wellington to our admiration. He and his great opponent were brought forth and
educated by the war of the Revolution. They were the accidents, not the cause, of that
mighty struggle. The question iswas that war in its origin just and necessary on our
part? Was it so strictly a defensive war that we are warranted in saying that God
raised up the Duke as an instrument for our protection? I humbly submit that the facts
of the case are in direct opposition to this view; and that it is only by pleading
ignorance of the historical details which I have narrated that we can hope to be
acquitted of impiety in attributing to an all-wise and just Providence an active
interposition in favour of a war so evidently unprovoked and aggressive.And I
remain faithfully yours, Richard Cobden.
To The Rev.
[?]Though in a future age it will probably become difficult to persuade some nations
that any human two-legged creature could ever embrace such principles. And it is a
thousand to one but those nations themselves shall have something fully as absurd in
their own creed, to which they will give a most implicit consent.
[?][Mr. Urquhart, formerly Secretary of the English Embassy at Constantinople.]
[?]Official value.
[?]Sir Matthew Decker.
[?]It would be amusing, and full of romantic interest, to detail some of the ten
thousand justifiable arts invented to thwart this unnatural coalition, which, of
necessity, converted almost every citizen of Europe into a smuggler. Bourrienne, who
was himself one of the commissioners at Hamburgh, gives some interesting anecdotes
in his Memoirs under this head. This writer is acquainted with a merchant who was
interested in a house that employed five hundred horses in transporting British goods,
many of which were landed in Sclavonia, and thence conveyed overland to France, at
a charge of about 28 a cwt.more than fifty times the present freight of
merchandise from London to Calcutta!
[?][This prohibition does not now exist.]
[?]Chateaubriand.
[]Macfarlane's Turkey.
[?][These monopolies have, of course, long since been abolished.]
[?][The charges for army, navy, and ordnance, for the year 1865, amounted to
25,280,925.]
[?]M'Culloch's Dictionary, p. 858; a work of unrivalled labour and usefulness, which
ought to have a place in the library of every merchant or reader who feels interested in
the commerce and statistics of the world. We will quote from another part this
valuable work, the opinion of the author upon the influences of Russian sway in this
quarter: On the whole, however, a gradual improvement is taking place; and
whatever objections may, on other grounds, be made to be encroachments of Russia
in this quarter, there can be no doubt that, by introducing comparative security and
good order into the countries under her authority, she has materially improved their
condition, and accelerated their progress to a more advanced state.P. 1108.
[?]We here give an extract from the correspondence of a London morning paper, upon
the affairs of Greece, that is illustrative of the case in hand:
Nauplia, Nov. 28, 1834. If we (the English people) had not been paying for fleets,
destroyers of fleets, protocols, loans, extraordinary ambassadors, presidents, couriers,
subsidies, &c., in the Levant, we might not have been surprised at the present state of
things. But taking into account the talents of Palmerston and S. Canning, and the
straightforward, open, John Bull policy of their agent here, really it is wonderful how
they can have allowed the other powers to have made such a mess of the business. But
the worst part of the affairs is, that things are quite as complicated now as they were a
week after the breaking out of the Revolution. Here we have a fleet reaching from
Gibraltar to the Dardanelles here we have the Russians as busy as ever and here
we have not the proceeds of the loan which our (the British) Government has
guaranteed, nor have we a revenue that will pay the interest of it. Amusingly enough,
we find, in another column of the very same copy of the same journal, a letter from its
correspondent, dated at Constantiniple, Nov. 25, from which the following is
extracted: Now is the time to step forward; a cracking south-wester and a bold
front are all that would be wanted; and our ships once at anchor in the Bosphorus,
adieu to the ambitious views of Russia! They would burst like a child's bubble. Adieu
to the stupid notions about the inevitable dissolution of Turkey. Adieu to the accursed
treaty which binds lovely Turkey to a remorseless ravager! ? ? ? One of her vain
finesses is now visible in Austria, where a hired press would make the world believe
that Austria is seriously opposed to Russian schemes. It does not require a very long
or sharp look-out to see that the two absolute governments are acting in collusion. ? ?
? It is a pretty manuvre to lead us from the real point of attack a mere feint; we
must pay no attention to it, but direct all our strength and energy to the true point,
Constantinople; that Constantinople which, once in Russia's hands, becomes the
mistress of Europe.
[?]Extract from a London paper, October 22, 1834: As at home, so abroad; the
Whigs have failed in all their negotiations, and not one question have they settled,
except the passing of a Reform Bill and a Poor Law Bill. The Dutch question is
undecided; the French are still at Ancona; Don Carlos is fighting in Spain; Don
Miguel and his adherents are preparing for a new conflict in Portugal; Turkey and
Egypt are at daggers drawn; Switzerland is quarrelling with her neighbouring states
about Italian refugees; Frankfort is occupied by Prussian troops, in violation of the
treaty of Vienna; Algiers is being made a large French colony, in violation of the
promises made to the contrary by France in 1829 and 1830; ten thousand polish
nobles are still proscribed and wandering in Europe; French goals are full of political
offenders, who, when liberated or acquitted, will begin again to conspire. In one word,
nothing is terminated. It is plain that, if this writer had his will, the whigs would
leave nothing in the world for Providence to attend to.
[?]Since writing this, the death of the Emperor of Austria is announced.
[?]Lest it might be said that we are advocating Russian objects of ambition, we think
it necessary to observe, that we trust the entire spirit of this pamphlet will show that
we are not of Russian politics. Our sole aim is the just interests of England, regardless
of the objects of other nations
[?]And sure it is yet a most beautiful and sweet country as any is under heaven being
stored throughout with many goodly rivers, replenished with all sorts of fish most
abundantly, sprinkled with many very sweet islands and goodly lakes, like inland seas
that will carry even shippes upon their waters; adorned with goodly woods, even fit
for building of houses and shippes so commodiously, as that, if some princes in the
world had them, they would soon hope to be lords of all the seas, of all the world; also
full of very good ports and havens opening upon England, as inviting us to come into
them, to see what excellent commodities that country can afford; besides, the soyle
itselfe fit to yeeld all kinde of fruit that shall be committed thereunto . And lastly, the
heavens most mild and temperate, though somewhat more moist than the parts
towards the east.Spenser.
[?]Dundee.
[?]Appenzell, St. Gall, and Aargau.
[?]In no country is there more bigotry and superstition among the lower orders, or
more blind obedience to the priesthood; in no country is there so much intolerance
and zeal among the ministers of religion. I do believe, that at this moment Catholic
Ireland is more rife for the re-establishment of the Inquisition than any other country
in Europe.Inglis' Travels in Ireland. See the same traveller's description of
Patrick's Purgatory, Loch Dergh. It adds weight to the testimony of this writer upon
such a subject, when it is recollected that he is the author of Travels in Spain.
[?]In the United States a Jew can hold all offices of State; he may by law become the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, Chief Justice, or even President. An American naval
commander of the Hebrew faith was, upon one occasion, introduced to George IV.
[?]Stations of the British Army in Ireland on the 1st November, 1834. (From the
United Service Journal.) Those marked thus ? are depots of Regiments. 3rd Dragoon
Guards, Dublin; 4th Dragoon Guards, Cork; 7th Dragoon Guards, Limerick; 9th
Lancers, Newbridge; 10th Hussars, Dundalk; 14th Light Dragoons, Longford; 15th
Hussars, Dublin; 3rd Battalion Grenadier Guards, Dublin; 1st Foot, 1st Battalion,
Londonderry;? 2nd Battalion, Athlone; 7th, Drogheda;? 9th, Youghal;? 14th,
Mullingar; 18th, Limerick; 24th, Kinsale;? 25th, Armagh;? 27th, Dublin; 29th,
Kinsale;? 30th, Clonmel;? 43rd, Cork; 46th, Dublin; 47th Foot, Boyle;? 52nd,
Enniskillen; 56th, Cork;? 60th, Nenagh; 2nd Battalion, Kilkenny; 67th, Cashel;? 69th,
Clare Castle;? 70th, Cork;? 74th, Belfast; 76th, Boyle;? 81st, Dublin; 82nd, Belfast;
83rd, Newry; 85th, Galway; 89th, Fermoy; 90th, Nass; 91st, Birr; 94th, Cork; 95th,
Templemore; 96th, Kinsale. Here is an array of bayonets that renders it difficult to
believe that Ireland is other than a recently conquered territory, throughout which an
enemy's army has just distributed its encampments. Four times as many soldiers as
comprise the standing army of the United States are at this time quartered in Ireland!
[?]Dr. Clarke tells us that the serfs of Russia, when old, are of right supported by the
owners of the estate.
[]In the Koran, the charities are enjoined: and Tournefort tells usThere are no
beggars to be seen in Turkey, because they take care to prevent the unfortunate from
falling into such necessities. They visit the prisons to discharge those who are arrested
for debt; they are very careful to relieve persons who are bashfully ashamed of their
poverty. How many families may one find who have been ruined by fires, and are
restored by charities! They need only present themselves at the doors of the mosques.
They also go to their houses to comfort the afflicted. The diseased, and they who have
the pestilence, are succoured by the neighbours' purse.Vol. ii., p. 59. The bible still
more strictly commands charity, andsee Inglis' Ireland!
[?]In alluding to this eminent, and we fervently believe disinterestedly patriotic,
individual, we have no wish to be thought to have caught the contagion of that
virulence with which, perhaps from the unworthiest of motives, his character has been
latterly assailed. We feel no very great respect for mere eloquence, which, from the
time of Demosthenes down to that of the subject of these remarks, has, probably, as
often been sacrificed at the altar of falsehood as upon the purer shrine of truth. But
Lord Brougham's labours on behalf of popular intelligence, at a time, too, be it always
remembered, when the cause of education was not, as now, fashionable, places his
fame on a monument that is based securely upon the broad and durable interests of the
people.
At the very instant of penning this note, we have seen the report of a speech made by
Lord Brougham in the House of Lords upon the subject of foreign politics, from
which we subjoin an extract, illustrating how little the judgment of this nobleman has
profited by the interval since 1823 upon a question on which, unluckily for England,
her statesmen have, one and all, been alike infatuated: With regard to the change
of the sovereign in Austria, he could not avoid expressing his hope that His Majesty's
Government would seize upon the opportunity offered by the change of the reigning
Sovereign there, and enforce, what he knew their predecessors had tried to enforce
(!), the humane, and in his conscience he believed the sound, prudent, and politic
course, as regarded the individual interest of the Austrian government, imposed upon
the government of His Imperial Majesty, to mitigate the rigours, if not to terminate the
sufferings, that, for nearly the whole of the last seventeen years, had been inflicted
upon some of the ablest, most accomplished, virtuous, and enlightened individuals,
the ornaments of the nobility of a part of His Imperial Majesty's dominions. He hoped
that an occasion would be taken of enforcing this subject on the attention of the
Austrian government, in a manner that became the character, the policy, and the
wisdom (!) of this country; for he was convinced. &c.Morning Chronicle Report,
March 11th, 1835.
The circumstances under which the above was uttered were even still more
inopportune than those we alluded to of 1823.
Under the same roofat the very same instant of time in which an interference with
the domestic concerns of a capital nearly a thousand miles distant, and with which we
have scarcely more interested connection than with Timbuctoo, was thus invokeda
debate was proceeding in the House of Commons (the malt question), in which it was
stated, by several speakers, that three fourths of the population of this kingdom are
plunged in distress and poverty; and in the course of which the Chancellor of the
Exchequer declared that he possessed not the power of alleviating such misery; whilst
such was the extremity to which this minister of the crown as driven, that he felt
impelled to appeal to the honesty of a British Parliament in behalf of the national
creditor.
[?]In June, 1819, a steamship crossed the Atlantic from Savannah to Liverpool.
[][In 1858, when the Earl of Eglinton was Lord Lieutenant, the first Irish Trans-
Atlantic packet station was established at Galway; and in about a year later Cork was
made a port of call for the Inman steamships, and subsequently for the Cunard line.]
[?][On June 21st, 1864, the Secretary of Ireland stated that in 1854 there were
151,403 acres under flax cultivation; in 1863, 214,063 acres; and in 1864 about
300,000 acres.]
[]The barbarities committed in Ireland as frequently spring out of feuds arising from
the competition after land as from disputes upon the question of tithes.
[?]When, at the commencement of the last century, a commission of the most
intelligent merchants of Holland drew up, at the request of the Government, a
statement of the causes of the commercial prosperity of that country, they placed the
following words first in the list of moral causes,:Among the moral and political
causes are to be placedunalterable maxim and fundamental law relating to the free
exercise of different religions; and always to consider this toleration and connivance
as the most effectual means to draw foreigners from adjacent countries to settle and
reside here, and so become instrumental to the peopling of these provinces.
[?]At the last sitting of the Belgian Chambers, a sum of 400 was voted towards the
support of the English chapel; and a similar amount was granted for the service of the
Jewish faith.
[]In planting of religion, thus much is needful to be donethat it be not sought
forcibly to be impressed into them with terror and sharpe penalties, as now is the
manner, bur rather delivered and intimated with mildness and gentlenesse, so as it
may not be hated before it be understood, and their professors despised and rejected.
And therefore it is expedient, that some discreete ministers of their owne countrymen
be first sent over amongst them, which, by their meeke persuasions and instructions,
as also by their sober lives and conversations, may draw them first to understand, and
afterwards to imbrace the doctrine of their salvation; for if that the auncient godly
fathers which first converted them, when they were infidells, to the faith, were able to
pull them from idolatry and paganisme to the true belief in Christ, as St. Patrick and
St. Colomb, how much more easily shall godly teachers bring them to the true
understanding of that which they already professed? Wherein is the great wonder to
see the oddes that is betweene the zeale of Popish priests and the ministers of the
gospell; for they spare not to come out of Spaine, from Rome, and from Remes, by
long toyle and dangerous travayling hither, where they know perill of death awayteth
them, and no reward or riches is to be found, only to draw the people unto the Church
of Rome. Whereas some of our idle ministers, having a way for credite and estimation
thereby opened unto them, and having the livings of the country offered unto them,
without peines and without perile, will neither for the same nor any love of God nor
zeale of religion, nor for all the good they may doe by winning soules to God, bee
drawne foorth from their warme nestes to look out into God's harvest, which is even
ready for the sickle and all the fields yellow long ago; doubtless those good olde
godly fathers will (I fear mee) rise up in the day of judgement to condemne
them.Spenser.
[?]
Who could their Sovereign, in their purse, forget,
And break allegiance but to cancel debt.Moore.
[?]An instance of this nature has come to our own knowledge. A gentleman presented
to the Lincoln Mechanics' Institution a copy of Stuart's work on America (probably
the best, because the most matter-of-fact and impartial of all the writers upon that
country), which an influential and wealthy individual of the neighbourhood, one of
the patrons of the society, induced the committee to reject. We do not feel intolerant
towards these errors of judgment, the fruits of ignorance or a faulty education. The
only wonder is, in this instance, to find such a character so out of his element as to be
supporting a Mechanics' Institute at all!
[?]The total amount of cotton worked up in this country in 1832 was 277,260,490 lbs.,
of which no less a proportion than 212,313,690 lbs, was imported from the United
States.
[?][According to the census of 1860, the population of the United States was
31,676,267.]
[][The population of the United Kingdom in 1861 was 29,346,834.]
[?]Bearing in mind that two millions of the American population are negroes, it makes
the commerce decidedly in favour of the United States.
[]Another fanciful theory upon the subject of the debt, invented, we believe, by
Coleridge (it must have been by a poet, for the consolation of less ideal minds), has
been lately promulgated. We are told that the country is none the worse off for the
national debt, because it is all owing to Englishmen; and that, therefore, it is only like
drawing off the blood from one part of the body to inject it into another veinit is
still all in the system. We feel sorry to molest so comfortable an illusion.
But does it made no difference in what manner the outlay is investedwhether eight
hundred millions of capital be sunk in the depths of the sea, or put out to good
interest? Is there no difference between such a sum being thrown away, destroyed,
annihilated, in devastating foreign countries, whilst the nation is called upon, out of
its remaining capital, and with its gratuitous labour, to pay the interestand the like
amount being employed in making canals, railways, roads, bridges, drains, docks, &c
planting trees, educating the people, or in any other may in which it would return its
own interest of capital?
[?]We believe, almost incredible as the fact is even to ourselves, that the British naval
commissioned officers exceed, by upwards of a thousand, the whole number of the
men and officers of the American navy. A comment of a similar tenor, applied to the
army of England, is to be found in a following page.
Yet we are in the twentieth year of peace, and every King's speech assures us to the
friendly disposition of all foreign powers!
[?]Upon what principle of justice are the people of these realms subjected to the
whole expense of attempting to put down the slave trade? We say attempting, because
it is well known that the traffic is carried on as actively as ever; and, during the last
year, the number of negroes conveyed away from the shores of Africa has been
estimated at twenty thousand. Here is a horrid trade, which will entail a dismal
reckoning, at the hands of Providence, upon the future generations of those countries
that encourage it! But by what right, by what credentials from on high, does England
lay claim to the expensive and vain office of keeping all mankind within the pale of
honesty?
[]These statements refer to the ships in commission. Our navy comprises about six
hundred vessels of all sizes and in all conditions. The whole American naval force
consists of seventy ships. Yet Sir James Graham, when bringing forward our navy
estimates for 1833, actually made use of this comparison to justify one force. So much
for the usefulness of that which is called dexterity in debate!
[?]The railroads, which were partly finished, partly in progress, at the time when I
visited the Untied States, were as follow:
MILES.
Baltimore and Ohio (from Baltimore and Pittsburgh) . 250
Massachusetts (from Boston to Albany) . . . 200
Catskill to Ithaca (State of New York) . . . . 167
Charleston to Hamburgh (South Carolina) . . . 135
Boston and Brattleboro'(Massachusetts and Vermont) . 114
Albany and New York . . . . . . . 160
Columbia and Philadelphia (from Philadelphia to New York) . . . . . . . . . 96
Lexington and Ohio (from Lexington to Cincinnati) . 75
Camden and Amboy (New Jersey) . . . . 60
Baltimore and Susquehanna (Maryland) . . . 48
Boston and Providence (Massachusetts and Rhode Island) 43
Trenton and Philadelphia . . . . . . 30
Providence and Stonington . . . . . . 70
Baltimore and Washington . . . . . . 38
Holliday's Burgh and Johnstown (Pennsylvania) . . 37
Ithaca and Oswego (New York) . . . . . 28
Hudson and Berkshire (New York and Massachusetts). 25
Boston and Lowell (Massachusetts) . . . . 24
Senectady and Saratoga (New York) . . . . 21
Mohawk and Hudson (New York) . . . . 15
Lackawaxen (from Honesdale to Carbondale, Pennsylvania) . . . . . . . . . 17
Frenchtown to Newcastle (Delaware and Maryland) . 16
Philadelphia and Norristown (Pennsylvania) . . 15
Richmond and Chesterfield (Virginia) . . . . 12
Manch Chunk (Pennsylvania) . . . 9
Haarlem (from New York to Haarlem) . . . 8
Quincey (from Boston to Quincey) . . . . 6
New Orleans (from Lake Pontchartrain to Orleans) . 5
The extent of the railroads forms an aggregate of one thousand seven hundred and
fifty miles. Ten years hence this amount to miles will probably be doubled or trebled;
so that scarcely any other roads will be used than those on which steam-carriages may
travel.Arfwedson's Travels in 1834. [Note to the Sixth Edition of England,
Ireland, and America.]
[It may be stated on the authority of Mr. Robert H. Berdell, President of the Erie
Railway Company, that thirty-five thousand miles of railway are now in operation in
the United States, and that nearly three thousand millions of dollars are invested in
these gigantic enterprises.]
[?]By Amos Lay.
[?][Mr. Bright, in the speech which he delivered at Birmingham on the 13th
December, 1865, said : I have just seen a report of a speech delivered last night by
Mr. Watkin, who has recently returned from the United States. Speaking of education,
he says that, taking the nine Northern States to contain ten millions and a half of
people, he found there were 40,000 schools, and an average attendance of 2,133,000
children, the total cost of their education being 9,000,000 dols. In the four Western
States, with a population of 6,100,000, there are 37,000 schools, with an average
attendance of nearly one million and a half scholars, at a cost of 1,250,000 dols. Thus,
in a population of sixteen millions, there are 77,000 schools, to which every poor
child can go, at a cost of 2,000,000 a year. He thought this highly to the credit of our
American cousins, and I perfectly agree with him on that point.]
[][This was written before the date of the education movement, in which Mr. Cobden
from an early period took a conspicuous part. According to the last Report of the
committee of Council on Education, the sum of 8,087,296 Is IId. has been expended
on Parliamentary grants from 1839 to 31st December, 1864. The expenditure rom
Education grants, in the latter year, amounted to 655,041 11s. 5d.]
[?][The census of 1860 states that 4,051 newspapers and periodicals were then
published in the United States, of which 3,242 were political, the remainder being
devoted to religion and literature. The annual aggregate circulation of copies was
estimated at 927,951, 548.]
[][From Mitchell's Newspaper Directory for 1865 it appears that 1,271 journals are
now published in the United Kingdom, exclusive of 554 Reviews and Magazines.
There are no trustworthy statistics of the circulation of these publications.]
[?]There is scarcely a large town in England whose prosperity and improvement are
not vitally affected by the operation of our laws of entail. In the vicinity of
Manchester scarcely any freehold land can be bought; Birmingham is almost wholly
built upon leasehold land, Wolverhampton has long been presenting a dilapidated
aspect, in the best part of the town, in consequence of the property required for
improvement being in the hands of the Church, and consequently inalienable. In many
parts, manufactures are, from the like obstructing causes, prevented extending
themselves over our coal-beds. The neighbourhood of Bullock Smithy might be
instanced, for example.
[]It would form an instructive summary to collect from our parliamentary history, for
the last three hundred years, details of the time spent in the vain endeavour to make
conscience square with Acts of Parliament. See the debates in both Houses on
Ireland in 1832 and 1833, for example.
[]It is not uncommon to find two thousand advertisements, principally of
merchandise, contained in a single copy of a New York journal. We have counted no
less than one hundred and seventy announcements in one column or compartment of
the New York Gazette. Of course the crowded aspect of one of these sheets, in
comparison with a London newspaper, is as different as in one of the latter in contrast
with a Salisbury or any other provincial journal.
[?]We mean individually and nationally, As individuals, because, in our opinion, the
people that are the best educated must, morally and religiously speaking, be the best.
As a nation, because it is the only great community that has never waged war
excepting in absolute self-defencethe only one which has never made a conquest of
territory by force of arms (contrast the conduct of this government to the native
Indians on the Mississippi, with our treatment of the aborigines on the Swan River);
because it is the only nation whose government has never had occasion to employ the
army to defend it against the people; the only one which has never had one of its
citizens convicted of treason; and because it is the only country that has honourably
discharged its public debt.
The slavery deformity was forcibly impressed upon this people in its infancy by the
mother country. May the present generation outgrow the blemish.
[?]A diverting specimen of aristocracy in low life is to be found in an amusing little
volume, called, Mornings at Bow Street. A chimney-sweep, who had married the
daughter of a costermonger, against the latter's consent, applied to the magistrate for a
warrant to recover the person of his wife, who had been taken away from him by her
father did not object to the charater of the husband, but protested against the
connection as being so low,
[?]Basil Hall's spending class.
[?]Pitt.
[]Nelson, Lady Hamilton, Prince Caraccioli.
[?]We have the testimony of the Leeds manufacturers, in their evidence before the
legislature, that foreign wools are absolutely indispensable to our Yorkshire industry.
[?]To avoid exaggeration, we have named a lower average than we are entitled to
quote.
[]Here let us remark, in reference to the absurdest of all absurd chimeras with which
we haun ourselves, of this empire being in danger from the assaults of Russiathat
we are convinced there is, at this moment, ten thousand times more cause of
apprehension from the financial evils of Great Britain than from all the powers of the
world.
[?][Mr. Cobden soon afterwards acknowledged his error. See Prentice's History of the
League, vol. i., p. 194.]
[?]It is estimated that our annual loss on corn alone is nine millions.
[]Wastrel, in Lancashire phrase, an idle, debauched, and worthless spend-thrifta
word that may be useful in London.
[?]When once Persia fell under the yoke of Russia, one great obstacle to the
acquirement of that which constituted our possessions in the East would be removed.
He hoped that its success would be impossibleit was at least problematical; but this,
at all events, was in no degree doubtful, that the matter was very seriously entertained
at St. Petersburg. In the War Office there, maps and plans, drawn expressly for the
purpose, were deposited, showing not only the practicability of such a scheme of
aggrandisement, but the various modes in which it might be best carried into effect,
and the way the several military stations necessary for the purpose might be
established. Lord Dudley Stuart's Speech, House of Commons, Feb. 19, 1836.
[?][Mr. David Urquhart.]
[]We state these facts from personal knowledge.
[?]WillisPencillings by the Way.
[]Quin Voyage down the Danube.
[?]Present State of Turkey.
[?]Boats may, we are told, go from St. Petersburg to the Caspian Sea without
unloading.
[?]A silver rouble is about 3s. 2d
[?]Some people contend that our colonies are profitable to us because they consume
our manufactures, although it is notorious that they do not buy a single commodity
from us which they could procure cheaper elsewhere, whilst we take frequently
articles from them of an inferior quality and at a dearer rate than we could purchase at
from other countries. But what do the advocates of the present system say to the fact,
that we are at this moment paying thirty per cent. more for the colonial productions
consumed in our houses than is paid for similar articles, procured from our own
colonies, too, by the people of the Continent? A workman in London, an artisan in
Manchester, or a farmer of Wales, buys his Jamaica sugar and coffee thirty per cent.
dearer than the native of Switzerland or America, perhaps five hundred miles distant
from a port, and whose Governments never owned a colony! But, it will be said, this
is necessary taxation to meet the interest of the debt. And what have we to show for
the national debt but our colonies?
[?]The amount of our exports of cotton goods, of which industry Manchester is the
centre, is double that of the exports of every kind from all the Russian empire; the
shipping entering Liverpool annually exceeds the tonnage of St.Petersburg eightfold!
These facts, which we can only thus allude to with epigrammatic brevity, convey
forcibly to the reflecting mind an impression of the mighty influence which now
slumbers in the possession of the commercial and manufacturing portions of the
community; how little they understand the extent of their power may be
acknowledged, when we recollect that this great and independent order of society (for
the manufacturing interest of England is, from the nature of its position with reference
to foreign states, more independent of British agriculture than the latter is of it), is
deprived of the just reward of its ingenious labour by the tyranny of the corn-laws;
that it possesses no representation, and consequently no direct influence, in one of the
Houses of Parliamentthe members of which, to a man, are interested in the
manufacture and high price of foodand that it still lies under the stigma of feudal
laws, that confer rights, privileges, and exemptions upon landed possessions, which
are denied to personal property.
[]Since the publication of England, Ireland, and America, the author has had an
opportunity of visiting the United States, and of taking a hasty glance of the American
people; and his ocular experience of the country has confirmed him in the views he
put forth in that pamphlet. Looking to the natural endowments of the North American
continentas superior to Europe as the latter is to Africawith an almost
immeasurable extent of river navigationits boundless expanse of the most fertile
soil in the world, and its inexhaustible mines of coal, iron, lead, &c. looking at
these, and remembering the quality and position of a people universally instructed and
perfectly free, and possessing, as a consequence of these, a new-born energy and
vitality very far surpassing the character of any nation of the old worldthe writer
reiterates the moral of his former work, by declaring his conviction that it is from the
west, rather than from the east, that danger to the supremacy of Great Britain is to be
apprehended; that it is from the silent and peaceful rivalry of American commerce, the
growth of its manufactures, its rapid progress in internal improvements, the superior
education of its people, and their economical and pacific governmentthat it is from
these, and not from the barbarous policy or the impoverishing armaments of Russia,
that the grandeur of our commercial and national prosperity is endangered. And the
writer stakes his reputation upon the prediction, that, in less than twenty years, this
will be the sentiment of the people of England generally; and that the same conviction
will be forced upon the Government of the country.
The writer has been surprised at the little knowledge that exists here with respect to
the mineral resources of America. Few are aware that in nothing does that country
surpass Europe so much as in its rich beds of coal. By a Government survey of the
State of Pennsylvania, it appears that it contains twenty thousand square miles of coal,
with iron in proportion. This in one State only! Whilst the whole of the Mississippi
valley is more or less enriched with this invaluable combustible. Several of his
neighbours have been astonished by the inspection of a specimen of bituminous coal,
which the writer procured from a pit at Brownsville, on the Monongahela river, above
Pittsburg, and which is pronounced equal to the very best qualities produced from the
mines in Yorkshire. The mode of working the pits is to drive an adit into the sloping
banks of the navigable rivers, and, at a few yards distance, the coal stratum is usually
found, six feet in thickness; and, as the miner is always enabled to work in an upright
posture, one man will frequently produce as much as 100 loads a-day. The steamboat
in which the author went from Brownsville to Pittsburg stopped at one of those pit's
mouths, and took in a supply of fuel, which was charged at the rate of about three
farthings a bushel. These are facts which bear more directly upon the future destinies
of this country than the marriages of crowned heads in Portugal, the movements of
savage forces in Russia, and similar proceedings, to which we attach so much
importance.
[?]Extract from Mr. T. Attwood's speech, House of Commons, July 9, 1833. The
House will recollect that, for two centuries, Russia has been gradually encroaching
upon the territories of all her neighbours; for the last 150 years her progress has been
general on all sideseast, west, north, and south. A few years ago she attacked
Sweden as seized upon Finland. Then she attacked Persia, and added some most
important provinces to her empire in the south. Not content with this, she
appropriated, in 1792, a great part of Poland; and it is but lately she has attacked
Turkey. Thus, for years, she has gone on in her course of aggrandisement, in defiance
of the laws of God and man! If for Sweden, Persia, and Poland, we substitute
France, Spain, and Holland, and if, instead of Turkey, we put the Burmese Empire,
how admirably the above description would apply to another nation, of whose
unprofitable aggrandisements in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America Mr. Attwood may
read a few particulars in Mr. Montgomery Martin's History of the British Colonies
five volumes, octavo!
[?]We allude to the nationthe epithet cannot be applied to his lordship.
[]We speak after due investigation and calculation, and not at random, when we
allege that England has acquired three times as much territory as Russia during the
last century. The Cape is computed at half a million of square miles, Canada at half as
much more, India and New Holland will be found each with an area almost as large as
that of the cultivable portion of Europe; not to mention other acquisitions too
numerous to be described within the limits of a pamphlet!
Progressive augmentation of the Russian Empire:
Sq. miles. Population.
At the accession of Peter I. . . 1689, 2,980,00015,000,000
At his death . . . . 1725, 3,150,00020,000,000
At the accession of Catherine IL. 1763, 3,700,00025,000,000
At her death . . . . 1796, 3,850,00036,000,000
At the death of Alexander . 1825, 4,250,00058,000,000
Matle-Brun's Geography, vol. vi. p. 622.
[?]The policy of England has been aggressive at all times; but we are far from
exulting in the fact of having always dealt the first blow, as Mr. Thomas Attwood, of
Birmingham, would wish us to do, when he tells us, exultingly, in the House of
Commons, whilst speaking of Russia(See Mirror of parliament, 1833, p. 2874),
We, the people of England, who have never known what fear is; who have been
accustomed for seven hundred years to give a blow first, and to receive an apology
afterwards; we, who have borne the British lion triumphant through every quarter of
the world, and are now forced to submit to insults from this base and brutal, and this
in reality weak powera power which, from its mere physical force, contrives, like a
great bully, to intimidate the moral strength of Europe! Now, putting aside the
exquisitely ludicrous charge of bullying, alleged against Russia by one who boasts,
that, for seven hundred years, we have struck the first blow, and which reminds us
of the scene between Sir Anthony Absolute and his insolent, impudent, overbearing
son, Jack: we have here a specimen of that sort of sentiment which horses or
buffaloes, if they could make speeches, might very properly indulge in, but which is
derogatory to the rank of reasoning beings, who possess intellectual faculties in lieu of
hoofs and horns.
Mr. Attowood is an advocate for war and paper moneythe curse and scourge of the
working classes! What do the Birmingham mechanics say to the following picture of
the effects of the last war upon the prosperity of their town? The same results would
follow a like cause, should a war be entered into, to gratify their favourite
representative.
Extract from Mr. Grey's (now Lord Grey) speech on the state of the nation, March 25,
1801. See Hansard's Parliamentary History, vol. 35, p. 1064.
I come now to speak of the internal state of the country. Two hundred and seventy
millions have been added to our national debt, exclusive of imperial and other loans,
and of the reduction effected by the sinking fund; and yet we are told, by the ex-
ministers, that they leave the country in a flourishing situation! I ask any man
whether, from diminished comforts or from positive distress, he does not feel this
declaration an insult. Ask the ruined manufacturers of Yorkshire, Manchester, and
Birmingham; ask the starving inhabitants of London and Westminster. In some parts
of Yorkshire, formerly the most flourishing, it appears, from an authentic paper which
I hold in my hand, that the poor-rates have increased from 522 to 6,000 a year;
though the whole rack-rent of the parish does not exceed 5,600. In Birmingham, I
know, from undoubted authority, there are near 11,000 persons who receive
parochial relief, though the whole number of the inhabitants cannot exceed
80,000and this of a town reckoned one of the most prosperous in England.
[?]Turkey.
[?]Yet there are perverse and purblind moralists, who can see proofs of God's
interposition in every atrocious crime that happens, in its consequences, to carry some
alloy of good; which merely proves that the great Ruler of the universe has, in spite of
us, set His fiat against the predominancy of evil. A clergyman, we believe Dr.
Buchanan, of high attainments and strict evangelical doctrines, who passed many
years in India, proposed a prize essay, on his return to England, as to the probable
designs of Providence in placing the Indian empire in the hands of Great Britain.
This, from a contemporary of Warren Hastings, is little less blasphemous than the Te
Deums sung by Catherine for the victories of Ismail and Warsaw.
[?]The Georgians.
[]M'CullochCommercial Dictionary, 7, p. 1108.
[]Encyclopdia Britannica, new edition, now publishing, vol, 6, p. 250art.
Caucasus.
[?]Yet the most active and persevering assailant of Russia, a writer to whom we
alluded in the beginning of this pamphlet, does not scruple to invoke the aid of these
hordes against their present rulers: . The Georgian provinces would instantly
throw off the yoke; even the Wallachians, Moldavians, and Bessarabians, would join
in the general impulse; the millions of brave and independent Circassians would pour
across the Couban and spread over the Crimeaand where would Russia be? See
Pamphlet, England, France, Russia, and Turkey.
[?]The clergy, from being exempt from taxation, have become possessed of a third of
the soil.
[?]Vol. vi. p. 499. Malte-Brun's Geography.
[?]Never was this corruption of the state so fearful as here, where the nobility
constituted the nation; and where morals alone had made the want of a constitution
less perceptible. Everything, therefore, deteriorated. The time for awakening from this
lethargy could not but come; but what a moment was it to be!Heeren's Manual,
vol. i., p. 370. By the constitution of 1791, which changed the government from an
elective to a hereditary monarchy, all the privileged of the nobility were confirmed;
some favours, though very small, were accorded to the peasants; these were slight, but
more could not be granted without irritating the former nation, the
nobility.Heeren, vol. ii., p. 231.
[?]Manual of the State Policy of Modern Europe, by Professor Heeren, vol. i., p.
262.
[?]Heeren, vol. i., pp. 191 and 192.
[]Gibbon.
[?]Histoire de l'Anarchie de Pologne et du Dmembrement de cette Rpublique. Par
C. Rublire. Paris: 1807. 4 vols. 8vo. The history of the Anarchy of Poland, in four
volumes octavo!
[?]The flame of religious discord was now added, and the Jesuits took care that the
fire should not be extinguished.Heeren, vol. i. p. 334.
[]The nation (the nobles) carefully guarded against any reforms, such as was taking
place in Russia.Heeren, vol. i. p. 328.
[?]The whole of the lands are now alienable, and may be purchased by the peasants,
and all other classes, except the Jews.Jacob's Report to the Lords, 1826, p.
66.This is the shameful exception in England!
[?]Some rare instances of perseverance, industry, and temperance, are to be found;
and, unfavourable as their circumstances may be for the creation of such habits, they
are here attended by the usual correspondent results. Some few peasants have been
enabled to purchase estates for themselves.Jacob's Report, p. 66.
[]Cabinet CyclopdiaHistory of Poland, p. 269.
[?]Wherever Russia extended her sovereignty, there prevailed overwhelming
tyranny, grinding oppression, unblushing venality, odious corruption, treacherous
espionages, spoliation, moral degradation, and slavery. (Hear, hear.)What good did
Russia ever accomplish? It was said that she might civilise the barbarian Turks; he
believed they would hear no more about that after the conduct of Russia towards
Poland. The Poles did not, as the House well knew, rise until goaded into madness by
a series of oppressions before unheard of; the country was watered by the tears of its
inhabitants.Lord Dudley Stuart's Speech, House of Commons, Feb, 19, 1836.
[?]Heeren, vol. ii. p. 231.
[]Jacob's Report, p. 60
[?]The peasants joined, to a considerable extent, the standard of revolt; but this was to
be expected in consequence of the influence necessarily exercised over them by the
superior classes. Besides, patriotism or nationality is an instinctive virtue, that
sometimes burns the brightest in the rudest and least reasoning minds; and its
manifestation bears no proportion to the value of the possessions defended, or the
object to be gained. The Russian serfs at Borodino, the Turkish slaves at Ismail, and
the lazzaroni of Naples, fought for their masters and oppressors more obstinately than
the free citizens of Paris or Washington did, at a subsequent period in defence of those
capitals.
[]We cannot help alluding to the unfortunate natives of this country who are now
seeking an asylum in England, and who belong entirely, we believe, to the class here
referred to. Our allusion is to the system which sacrificed millions to hundreds of
thousands, and not to persons, or even to generations of persons. Above all, we would
except the unfortunate stranger that is now within our gates, imploring our help in a
season of distress. In throwing himself upon our shores, the unhappy Pole evinced his
generous belief that we would protect and succour him, and he will not discover that
we want the power or the will to do either; nor will we wait to inquire whether he be
peer or peasant. The bird that, to escape from the tyrant of the skies, flies trembling to
the traveller's bosom is secure; base, indeed, would he be first to examine if his
fluttering guest were a dove or a hawk. We cannot, however, approve of the lectures
upon Polish history and literature, which have been delivered, in many parts of the
kingdom, by some of these refugees. They convey erroneous pictures of the former
condition of that country; glossing over the conduct of the nobles, and suppressing all
mention of the miserable state of the serfs.
[?]See Appendix for extracts from history of Poland.
[?]The terms of abuse showered upon Nicholas in the British legislature are new in
taste; and, we think, we applied to a potentate at peace with us, such epithets as
monster, Herod, miscreant, &c., are not improvements upon the terms that we find in
the earlier volumes of Hansard. In any case, would such language be honourable to
the Parliament? Supposing a war should follow, is it dignified to precede hostilities
with vituperative missiles? Spring and Langan set to with a better grace, by shaking
hands at the scratch: the rules of the Five-court had better be transcribed for the
benefit of St.Stephen's. We are told, indeed, that it is a just manifestation of public
opinion. We have heard similar expressions of opinion at Billingsgate and Clare
Market, and have observe that they sometimes lead to blows, but never to conviction.
[?]Russia, as honourable members must be well aware, was not at the least pains to
disguise her dissatisfaction at the present state of affairs in the Peninsula; and with a
frontier so far advanced as hers now was, could any man living doubt that she would
very soon adopt plain modes of making that dissatisfaction felt? He repeated that,
with a frontier so far advanced, Italy was not safe from her grasp, and Russia once
established there the consequences to Austria must be tremendous. Russia was
surroundingwas enveloping Austria. Turkey would soon fall a prey to her lust of
extended dominion. Greece would be a mere province of Russia; indeed, already
Greece was subjected to her influence, and she scarcely hesitated to menace France.
He would again say that the whole of the Prussian league was at the instigation of
Russia, the former being the mere creature of the latter. When the present designs of
Russia were accomplished, they would soon see how she was becoming jealous of
Prussia, and a pretext would not be long wanting for the destruction of that instrument
which the great northern power had used in erecting and confirming its own
ascendancy. Prussia was prepared to do everything which Russia might dictate for the
purpose of forwarding her designs; but she might fully anticipate thisthat as soon as
the plans of the Autocrat were matured, he would in a day (!) dismember and pull
down his present allies, and after that Austria could not long resist. Then in another
quarter of her great empire, let them only look at the advantages possessed by Russia.
She had military stations within thirty miles of the western coast of Norway. That
country could furnish sailors inferior to none in the world, and the whole kingdom
abounded with timber of the best quality. Russia would then become a naval power of
the first order (!) and might be joined by the Americans or the Dutch to the manifest
disadvantage of England. (! !)Times, report of Lord Dudley Stuart's Speech, Feb.
19. 1836.
These sentiments appear to have been delivered with gravity, and listened to by the
House of Commons without a smile!
[?]Regiments of peasants, who till that day had never seen war, and who still had no
other uniform than their grey jackets, formed with the steadiness of veterans, crossed
their brows, and having uttered their national exclamation, Gospodee Pomiloui
nas!God have mercy upon us!rushed into the thickest of the battle.Scott's
Napoleon, chap. 77.
[]Spectator newspaper, No. 386.
[?]Unless his Muscovite Majesty should adopt this suggestion quickly, there appears
some chance that England may be before him at Pekin. We perceive that some of our
writers are anxious that we should send some ships of war to compel the Chinese
Government to open other ports to our vessels besides Canton, and to dictate certain
other regulations for carrying on trade with us, which they are good enough to suggest
to his Celestial Majesty. Could not our ships of war call in on the way, and compel the
French people to transfer the trade of Marseilles to Havre, and thus save us the
carriage of their wines and madders through the Straits of Gibraltar? Why should not
they force the Americans to restrict the export of their cotton to New York, rather than
to suffer the growth of Savannah and Mobile? Well may the Chinese proclaim us
outside barbarians; for, verily, this is outside barbarous morality!
[]Double the amount might be raised without difficulty, upon sufficient security, in
Manchester, in less than forty-eight hours, if the profit or other motive offered an
adequate inducement.
[?]When the measures for conciliating the respective commercial interests of parties
in the Irish Union were arranging, the opinion of practical men was taken as to the
period at which the cotton manufacture of Ireland might be able to go on, in
competition with that of England, without the help of protecting duties; and
Mr.William Orr, of Dublin, who had introduced the manufacture into that country,
was asked if he thought it likely that in ten years the Irish manufacturers would
overtake the English in skill? Mr. Orr replied:Yes, if the English can be Persuaded
during that time to stand still.
[?]During the war between Russia and the Porte, in 1791, the Government of St.
Petersburg, anxious to send a fleet to attack the Turkish power in the Archipelago,
requested permission of the Dutch and English to be allowed to refit the vessels and
take in stores at one of their ports; and failing in this application, the expedition was
abandoned.
[]In large bodies the circulation of power must be less at the extremities: Nature
herself has said it. The Truck cannot govern Egypt as he governs Thrace, nor has he
the same dominion in the Crimea and Algiers which he has at Brusa and Smyrna.
Despotism itself is obliged to truck and huckster; the Sultan gets such obedience as he
can; he governs with a loose reign that he may govern at all: it is the eternal law of
extension and detached empire.BURKE.
[?]That this spirit still survives in full vigour may be shown by the motion recently
made in the House of Commons by Mr. T. Duncombe, for interceding with the French
Government in behalf of the state prisoners at Ham. Prince Polignac and his
confederates attempted, by their coup d' tat, to deprive France of law, place the
whole country in the hands of despots, and reduced it to the monkish ignorance of the
middle ages, by giving again to priests and bigots the absolute power over the printing
press. In this attempt they failed; but freedom conquered at the cost of hundreds of
victims. In England, or any other country but France, those ministers would have
suffered death. Yet, after five years of confinement, behold us interfering with the
course of justice in an empire with whose internal concerns we are no more entitled to
mix than with those of China!
Within a week of this display, a lad was transported from Macclesfield for fourteen
years, for stealing a pair of stockings. We recommend this to our facetious Gallic
neighbours as a fit opportunity for intervention: the mother should be induced to write
her case to M.Odillon Barrot, or some other popular member of the Chamber of
Deputies.
[?]The conquests of colonies have been regarded with some complacency because
they are merely, in most instances, reprisals for previous depredations by the parent
state; but England for fifty years at Gibraltar is a spectacle of brute violence
unmitigated by any such excuses. Upon no principle of morality can this unique
outrange upon the integrity of an ancient, powerful, and renowned nation, placed at a
remote distance from our shores, be justified. The example, if imitated, instead of
being shunned, universally, would throw all the nations of the earth into barbarous
anarchy, and deprive mankind of the blessings of law, justice, and religion. It is time
not only to think, but to speak, of these things in a spirit of honest truth. The people of
this countrythe middling and working classeshave no interest, as we shall by-
and-by have to show, in these acts of unjust aggression and foreign violence. Alas for
the cause of morals if they had!
[?]Mankind, although reprobates in detail, are always moralists in the
gross.Montesquieu.
[?]The phrase was actually adopted by Napoleon! who told O'Meara, at St. Helena,
that he refused to permit the Emperor Alexander to occupy the Dardanelles, because,
if Russia were in possession of Turkey, the balance of power in Europe would be
destroyed! Lord Dudley Stuart sees much to admire in this regard for the balance of
power by one who had himself been in military occupation of all the principal states
of Europe:But the profound views of that great man Napoleon, told him not to
accede to either the demands or entreaties of Alexander; and, on that occasion, though
he had invaded the Turkish empire himself, he saved it by refusing the passage of the
Dardanelles to Russia; nay, he saved Europe itself.Lord Stuart's Speech, February
19.
[?]Lord Bacon's political maxims are full of moral turpitude. Nobody can, says he,
in speaking of kingdoms and estates, be healthful without exerciseneither natural
body nor politic; and certainly to a kingdom or estate, a just and honourable war is the
true exercise. Accordingly, just wars are necessary; and as there must be an opposite
party to a just war, ergo, unjust wars are necessary! In speaking of kings, he calls
them mortal gods on earth. And, in his chapter on seditions and troubles, he gives
many rules for governing and restraining, but not one for instructing the people. We
speak of the moral sentiments of this great man distinctly from his intellectual powers.
[?]There appears to be one honourable member of the British legislature, and only
one, who is an advocate of this policy. Sir Harry Verney, in speaking after Mr. T.
Attwood, upon the subject of Russia (see Mirror of Parliament, 1833, p. 2878)
saidThe honourable gentleman has represented Russia as a state sunk in barbarism
and ignorance, and hostile to every species of liberty. I would to God that such a
description of Russia were correct I believe the reverse to be the fact. I believe there
is no power on earth which resorts to such effectual means of propagating her power,
civilising her country, promoting commerce, manufactures, the acquirement of useful
information, and the propagation of every useful institution, as Russia. Does the
honourable gentleman know that at this moment steam-boats navigate the Volga; and
that you may travel in all parts of Russia in the same way as you may through the
United States? Does the honourable gentleman know that the Emperor of Russia
sends abroad agents in whom he can confide, to obtain information relative to
improvements and inventions which may be useful to himself? ? ? ? I am quite sure
that, if this country would maintain the balance of power, we must oppose the
encroachments of Russia.
A Yankee punster would exclaimSir Harry goes the whole hog with Bacon upon
the balance of power!
Yes, Sir Harry is right. He and the noble author of the Novum Organum are the
only two philosophers who have taken a true and consistent view of the question. We
are far, however, from including them both under one rule of inculpation. The
honourable member for Buckinghamshire errs, perhaps, intellectually, and not
morally. His chief fault, or rather misfortune, is, that he lives in Buckingham. Let him
and the Marquis of Chandos go through a course of Adam Smith and the economists,
beginning with Harriet Martineau; and they will then be convinced that we cannot
profit by the barbarism of another people, or be injured by their progress in
civilisation, any more than the British nation can gain by the corn laws.
[?]Burke's Speech, House of Commons, March 29, 1791.See Hansard's
Parliamentary History, vol. xxix., pp. 76, 77.
[]See Hansard's Parliamentary History, vol. xxix., p. 929.
[?]We add an extract from a letter, dated January 26, 1836, addressed to the author by
a frienda gallant officer, and an enlightened and amiable man, who himself holds
an official rank at the British Court from one of the States of South America:You,
who are so strong an advocate for peace and freedom, will be glad to hear of the
tranquillity of America, and that our systems of government are at last working well.
Of the thirteen trans-Atlantic republics, ten are now in a perfect state of order and
prosperity. The capture of Puerto Cabello from a banditti who are in possession of it
will restore that of Venezuela; and the next news from Peru will give us that of the
peaceable settlement of its government. Mexico, therefore, will alone remain an
exception to this peaceful state; and I am afraid she will long remain so; yet, in spite
of the troubles of Mexico, she last year raised from her mines (according to the
official report of the Minister of Finance, and without including what was smuggled),
thirty millions of dollars, in gold and silver, being three millions more than was ever
produced under the most flourishing year of the old Spanish Government. As to the
national debts of America, the bonds of the United States were used to be sold by
basketfuls, in the first years of their independence, yet they have now paid off the
whole. You have about fourteen principal nations in Europe, and you know two or
three of them have internal dissensions.
[?]The average time of the passage from New York to Liverpool, by the line of packet
ships, is twenty-five days.
[?]Washington Irving has good humouredly satirised this national propensity for
foreign politics in the well-known sketch of John Bull. He is, says that exquisite
writer, a busy-minded personage, who thinks, not merely for himself and family, but
for all the country round, and is most generously disposed to be everybody's
champion. He is continually volunteering his services to settle his neighbour's affairs,
and takes it in great dudgeon if they engage in any matter of consequence without
asking his advice; though he seldom engages in any friendly office of the kind without
finishing by getting into a squabble with all parties, and then railing bitterly at their
ingratitude. He unluckily took lessons in his youth in the noble science of defence;
and having accomplished himself in the use of his limbs and weapons [i.e., standing
armies and navies] and become a perfect master at boxing and cudgel play, he has had
a troublesome life of it ever since. He cannot hear of a quarrel between the most
distant of his neighbours but he begins incontinently to fumble with the head of his
cudgel, and consider whether interest or honour does not require that he should
meddle in their broils. Indeed he has extended his relations of pride and policy so
completely over the whole country [i.e., quadripartite treaties and quintuple
alliances] that no event can take place without infringing some of his finely-spun
rights and dignities. Couched in his little domain, with those filaments stretching forth
in every direction, he is like some choleric, bottle-bellied old spider, who has woven
his web over a whole chamber, so that a fly cannot buzz, nor a breeze blow, without
startling his repose and causing him to sally forth wrathfully from his den. Though
really a good-tempered, good-hearted old fellow at bottom, yet he is singularly fond
of being in the midst of contention. It is one of his peculiarities, however, that he only
relishes the beginning of an affray; he always goes into a fight with alacrity, but
comes out of it grumbling even when victorious; and, though no one fights with more
obstinacy to carry a contested point, yet, when the battle is over, and he comes to a
reconciliation, he is so much taken up with the mere shaking of hands [Lord
Castlereagh at the Treaty of Vienna] that he is apt to let his antagonists pocket all they
have been grumbling about. It is not, therefore, fighting that he ought to be so much
on his guard against as making friends. All that I wish is, that John's present
troubles may teach him more prudence in future; [nothing of the kindlook at him
now, fifteen years after this was written, playing the fool again, ten times worse than
ever, in Spain] that he may cease to distress his mind about other people's affairs; that
he may give up the fruitless attempt to promote the good of his neighbours, and the
peace and happiness of the world, by dint of the cudgel: that he may remain quietly at
home; gradually get his house into repair; cultivate his rich estate according to his
fancy; husband his incomeif he thinks proper; bring his unruly children into
orderif he can.Sketch Book.
[?]We stated this familiar fact in a former pamphlet; but it is one that cannot be too
frequently placed broadly before the public eye.
[?]This is still a favourite toast at the annual meetings of the Pitt clubs, drunk by these
consistent politicians who will not yield even to the inexorable reforms of trade.
[?]We shall not enter upon the subject of the profit and loss of our colonies, which
would require a volume. An acute writer of the day estimates the annual loss by our
dependencies at something like four millions; but he loses sight altogether of the
interest of the money spent in conquering them, which is twenty or thirty millions a
year more! Leaving these unprofitable speculations as to the past, let us beg our
readers to look at a chart o the world, and, after comparing the continent of free
America with the specks of islands forming our colonial possessions, to ask himself
whether, in choosing our future commercial course, the statesmen who presides at the
helm of affairs ought to take that policy for his guide which shall conduct us to the
market of the entire hemisphere, or that which prefers the minute fraction of it.
[?]About one-half of our exports is of cotton origin; but we take one-third as the
portion worked up from North American material.
[]We wish those rhetorical statesmen, who talk so eloquently in favour of going to
war to preserve the equilibrium of Europe, or the balance of power in Turkey, would
condescend to give a thought as to its effects upon the equilibrium of our cotton
manufacture.
[]We confine our illustrative remarks on that part which we assume to be the growth
of the United States; the total of our imports and exports of cotton is, of course, more
than stated here.
[?]See the United Service Journal for June, 1836, for a list of the ships of war and
their stations, June 1st:North American and West Indian stations, one 74 and one
52 guns.
[?]See the United Service Journal, June 1, 1836, for a list of the stations of the British
navy.
[?]The public papers have announced that, owing to the demand for sailors for the
royal navy, the merchants have been compelled to advance the wages of their hands.
We have read the following notice upon the quay at LiverpoolWanted, for his
Majesty's Navy, a number of petty officers and able-bodied seamen. It would seem
that there is no want of commissioned officers; which accounts for the increase of the
navy estimates, we suspect.
[?]Our former intervention in the concerns of Spain was characterised by wisdom
itself when compared with the unadulterated folly of the part we are at present taking
in Peninsular affairs. Here is a family quarrel, between two equally worthless
personages, who dispute the right of reigning over ten millions of free people; and
England sends a brigade of four or five thousand men (by what right?) to decide this
purely domestic question! We have been informed, by a friend long resident in Spain,
upon whose authority we can rely, that there is not an honest public functionary in the
country; that, from the Minister down to the lowest tide-waiter, all are as corrupt now
as when Wellington censured the treachery of this people. Villiers and Evans are
experiencing that treatment, at the hands of Isturiez and Cordova, which Frere and Sir
John Moore encountered, thirty years ago, from the agents of the Government. That
the people are not improved by our last sacrifices for the dynasty of Ferdinand may be
proved by their atrocities and female massacresunheard of out of Turkey. When the
affairs of the British empire are conducted with as much wisdom as goes to the
successful management of a private business, the honest interests of our own people
will become the study of the British ministry; and then, and not till then, instead of
being at the mercy of a chaos of expedients, our Foreign Secretary will be guided by
the principle of non-intervention in the politics of other nations. A people, says
Channing, which wants a saviour, which does not possess an earnest and pledge of
freedom in its own heart, is not yet ready to be free. In the meantime, it cannot be too
widely known, that our interference in the private quarrels of these semi-barbarians
will cost us, this year, half a million sterling; whilst with difficulty we have obtained
10,000 for establishing Normal Schools!
[?]The ignorance manifested in the French Chamber of Deputies upon commercial
affairs, during the recent discussions, and the folly and egotism of the majority of the
speakers, leave little hope of an increased intercourse between the two countries. M.
Thiers openly avowed that we were to be manufacturing rivals, but political friends:
we disclaim both these relationships. The French, whilst they are obliged to prohibit
our fabrics from their own market, because their manufacturers cannot, they say,
sustain a competition with us, even with a heavy protecting duty, never will become
our rivals in third markets, where both will pay alike. The boast of the Prime Minister
of France is like the swagger of one, who, having barricaded himself securely in his
own house, blusters about giving battle in a neighbouring county. For the English
ministry to form a mere political connection with the present unstable government and
dynasty of France, to the exclusion of trading objects, would be to put us in
partnership with a party in a desperate state of fortune, who resolved not to mend it.
There can be no real alliance, unless by a union of interests. Schoolboys have
sufficient knowledge of human nature to feel this, when they throw their marbles into
a common bag, and become friends.
[?]Nothing is worthy of more attention, in tracing the causes of political evil, than
the facility with which mankind are governed by their fears, and the degree of
constancy with which, under the influence of that passion, they are governed wrong.
The fear of Englishmen to see an enemy in their country, has made them do an
infinite number of things which had a much greater tendency to bring enemies into
their country than to keep them away.
In nothing, perhaps, have the fears of communities done them so much mischief as in
the taking of securities against enemies. When sufficiently frightened, bad
Governments found little difficulty in persuading them that they never could have
securities enough. Hence come large standing armies, enormous military
establishments, and all the evils which follow in their train. Such are the effects of
taking too much security against enemies.Ency. Brit. New edition. Vol. vii. p. 122.
[?]We shall offer no excuses for so frequently resolving questions of State policy into
matters of pecuniary calculation. Nearly all the revolutions and great changes in the
modern world have had a financial origin. The exaction of the tenth penny operated
far more powerfully than the erection of the Council of Blood to stir the Netherlands
into rebellion in 1569 against the tyranny of Charles V. Charles I. of England lost his
head in consequence of enforcing the arbitrary tax called ship-money. The
independence of America, and indirectly through that event, all the subsequent
political revolutions of the entire world, turned upon a duty of threepence a pound,
levied by England upon tea imported into that colony. Louis XVI. of France, when he
summoned the first assembly of the Estates-General, did so with the declared object
of consulting with them upon the financial embarrassments under which his
Government was labouring: that was the first of a series of definite changes which
eventually cost the king his life, and Europe twenty years of sanguinary wars. The
Second French Revolution, in 1830, was begun by the printers, who were deprived of
the means of subsistence by the Ordinances of Charles X. against the press. How
much of our own Reform Bill was the fruits of a season of distress?
Remembering that to nineteen-twentieths of the people (who never encounter a higher
functionary than the tax-gatherer, and who meet their rulers only in duties upon beer,
soap, tobacco, etc.) politics are but an affair of pounds, shillings, and pence, we need
not feel astonished at such facts as the preceding.
[]The following is the American navy in commission, February 27, 1836:One ship
of the line, four frigates, eleven sloops, six small vessels; and this after a threatened
rupture with France, when every arrival from Europe might have brought a
declaration of war! Compare this statement with the fact, that the British Government,
with a force, at the same time, more than six-fold that of the United States, demanded
an increase of more than the entire strength of the American navy, and with the same
breath avowed the assurance of permanent peace; and let it be remembered, too, that
the House of Commons voted this augmentation, under the pretence of protecting our
commerce!
A few plain maxims may be serviceable to those who may in future have occasion to
allude to the subject of commerce, in king's speeches, or other state papers.
To make laws for the regulation of trade, is as wise as it would be to legislate about
water finding a level, or matter exercising its centripetal force.
So far from large armaments being necessary to secure a regularity of supply and
demand, the most obscure province on the west coast of America, and the smallest
island in the South Pacific, are, in proportion to their wants, as duly visited by buyers
and sellers as the metropolis of England itself.
The only naval force required in a time of peace for the protection of commerce, is
just such a number of frigates and small vessels as shall form an efficient sea police.
If government desires to serve the interests of our commerce, it has but one way. War,
conquest, and standing armaments cannot aid, but only oppress trade; diplomacy will
never assist itcommercial treaties can only embarrass it. The only mode by which
the Government can protect and extend our commerce, is by retrenchment, and a
reduction of the duties and taxes upon the ingredients of our manufactures and the
food of our artisans.
[?]House of Commons Report, June 6.
[?]We invite the attention of public-spirited members of Parliament to these facts.
They are submitted for the investigation of the conductors of the newspaper press.
Every Chamber of Commerce in the kingdom is interested in the subject. This is not a
question of party politics, but of public business. Every prudent trader must feel
outraged at such a display of reckless extravagance by a commercial people; nay,
every economical labourer and frugal housewife must be scandalised by this wasteful
misdirection of the industry of the state.
[?]Pitt, whose views of commercial policy were, at the commencement of his career,
before he was drawn into the vortex of war by a selfish oligarchy, far more
enlightened and liberal than those of his great political opponents (as witness the
opposition by Burke and Fox to his French treaty on the vulgar ground that the two
nations were natural enemies), entertained a just opinion of the comparative
unimportance of the trade of the east of the Mediterranean, after the growth of our
cotton manufactures and the rise of the United States had given a new direction to the
great flood of traffic.
Of the importance of the Levant trade, said Mr. Pitt (see Hansard's Par. Hist. vol.
xxxvi., p. 59), much had formerly been said, volumes had been written upon it, and
even nations had gone to war to obtain it. The value of that trade, even in the periods
to which he had alluded, had been much exaggerated; but even supposing those
statements to have been correct, they applied to times when the other great branches
of our trade to which we owe our present greatness and our naval superiority did not
existhe alluded to the great increase of our manufactures, to our great internal trade,
to our commerce with Ireland, with the United States of America. It was these which
formed the sinews of our strength, and compared with which the Levant trade was
trifling. This was spoken in 1801, since which time our trade with the United States
has increased threefold, and by the emancipation of South American colonies, another
continent of still greater magnitude offers us a market which throws by its superior
advantages those of the Levant and Turkey into comparative insignificance, and adds
proportionably to the force of the argument in the above quotation. Yet we have
statesmen of our day who seem to have scarcely recognised the existence of America.
[?]Two letters have since been published in the Manchester Guardian, May 28, which
are written by Lord Durham and addressed to Mr. Gisborne, the British Consul at
Petersburg, giving the most positive assurances that no interruption will take place in
our friendly commercial relations with Russia. Will the navy be reduced? We may
apply the lines of Gay, written upon standing armies a century ago, to sailors
Soldiers are perfect devils in their way
When once they're raised they're deuced hard to lay.
Apropos of soldiers. In 1831, during the progress of the Reform Bill, and when the
country was upon the eve of a new election, in which, owing to the excitement of the
people, tumults were justly to be dreaded, an augmentation of the army to the extent
of 7,680 men was voted by the Parliament. Mr. Wynn, the then War Secretary,
declared that this increase had no reference to continental affairs. He should be
rejoiced, he said, if the causes which led to this augmentation should cease and enable
the Government to reduce the estimates before the end of three months. No reduction
yet1836! Where is Mr. Hume?
[?]Financial Reform.
[?]To me it seems that neither the obtaining nor the retaining of any trade, however
valuable, is an object for which men may justly spill each other's blood; that the true
and sure means of extending and securing commerce is the goodness and cheapness
of commodities; and that the profit of no trade can ever be equal to the expense of
compelling it and of holding it by fleets and armies.Franklin's letter to Lord
Howe, quoted in Hughes History of England, vol. xv., p. 254.
[]Burke, in his first productionA Vindication of Natural Societysums up his
estimate of the loss of human life, by all the wars of past ages, at seventy times the
population of the globe. It is not a little lamentable to reflect that this great genius,
among other inconsequential acts of his life, afterwards contributed more than any
other individual to fan the flame of the French revolutionary wars, in which several
millions more were added to his dismal summary of the victims of glory. (?)
[?]At a meeting of a literary society, of which the author is a member, the subject of
discussion lately wasWould, or would not, the interests of the civilised world, and
those of England in particular, be promoted by the conquest of Turkey by Russia?
Which, after an interesting debate on the part of a body of as intelligent individuals as
can be found in a town more deeply interested in the question than any in the
kingdom, was decided affirmatively. The assumed possession was alone considered as
affecting the interests of society. The morality of the aggression was not the question
entertained, and, therefore, did not receive the sanction of the society.
[?]It will be apparent to any inquiring mind, which takes the trouble to investigate the
subject, that our commerce with America is, at this time, alone sustaining the wealth
and trade of these realms. Our colonies do not pay for the expenses of protecting and
governing them; leaving out of the question the interest of the debt contracted in
conquering them. Europe has been a still more unprofitable customer.
[?]It is a saying of Montesquieu that God Almighty must have intended Spain and
Turkey as examples to show to the world what the finest countries may become when
inhabited by slaves. Yet these two nations are now the objects of British protection,
and the source of considerable annual expenditure to the people of these realms;
whilst the statu quo of Turkey seems to be the aim of our politicians. In speaking of
the cost of our interference in Spain, we assume (safely enough) that the loan of arms
by the British Government will not be repaid.
[?]England, France, Russia, and Turkey.
[?]See the volume on The Horse, published by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge, for the stress laid upon the superiority of mild treatment in the breaking
of that animal.
[?]Pacta conventa meant a fresh bargain, which was made by the nobles at every
succeeding election of a king, and by which their own powers and privileges were
constantly augmented.
[?]Those whom God would destroy, He first deprives of reason.
[?]I believe every man is brave.Duke of Wellington, House of Lords, June 15,
1852.
[?]England had, in 1792, 153 ships of the line, and France 86.James's Naval
History.
[]The Marquis of Lansdowne, speaking of the probable execution of the King of
France, said, Such a King was not a fit object for punishment, and to screen him
from it every nation ought to interpose its good offices; but England, above all, was
bound to do so, because he had reason to believe that what had encouraged the French
to bring him to trial was the precedent established by England in the unfortunate and
disgraceful case of Charles I.Dec. 21, 1792.
[?]House of Commons, May 25, 1792. All the speeches from which I have quoted
were delivered in Parliament, and the quotations are from Hansard.
[?]Vol. iii. p. 108.
[]Life of Napoleon, ch. vii.
[?]Scott's Napoleon.
[]20th April, 1792.
[]With his too common inaccuracy, the author has overlooked the previous death of
Leopold.
[?]Vol. v. p. 129.
[?]May 27, 1795.
[]No one more clearly than Mr. Pitt saw the ruinous consequences of the contest
into which his new associates, the deserters from the Whig standard, were drawing or
were driving him. None so clearly perceived or so highly valued the blessings of
peace as the finance minister who had but the year before accompanied his reduction
of the whole national establishment with a picture of our future prosperity almost too
glowing even for his great eloquence to attempt. Accordingly, it is well known, nor is
it even contradicted by his few surviving friends, that his thoughts were all turned to
peace. But the voice of the court was for war; the aristocracy was for war; the country
was not disinclined towards war, being just in that state of excitable (though as yet not
excited) feeling which is dependent on the Government, that is, upon Mr. Pitt, either
to calm down into a sufferance of peace or rouse into a vehement desire of hostilities.
In these circumstances the able tactician, whose genius was confined to parliamentary
operations, at once perceived that a war must place him at the head of all the power in
the State, and, by uniting with him the more aristocratic portion of the Whigs, cripple
his adversaries irreparably; and he preferred flinging his country into a contest which
he and his great antagonist, by uniting their forces, might have prevented; but then he
must also have shared with Mr. Fox the power which he was determined to enjoy
alone and supreme.Brougham's Statesmen of George III., series i., vol. i., p.
7779.
[?]Vol. ii. p. 330.
[?]Jan. 4, 1793.
[?]And here let me give an extract from Scott's Life of Napoleon, illustrative of the
looseness and inaccuracy with which history is sometimes written. I have explained
the errors in italics:
Lord Gower, the British ambassador, was recalled from Paris immediately on the
King's execution. [He was recalled on the King's deposition in August, his execution
not taking place till January following.] The Prince to whom he was sent was no
more; and, on the same ground, the French envoy at the Court of St. James, though
not dismissed by his Majesty's Government, was made acquainted that the ministers
no longer considered him as an accredited person. [The French ambassador was
peremptorily ordered to leave this country in eight days, upon the news of the King's
death reaching this country.] And from these inaccurate data he draws the conclusion
that we are not the aggressors in the war which immediately followed.
[?]Degree of Fraternity. The National Convention declares in the name of the French
nation that it will grant fraternity and assistance to all people who wish to recover
their liberty; and it charges the Executive power to send the necessary orders to the
generals to give assistance to such people, and to defend those citizens who have
suffered or may suffer in the cause of liberty.19th November, 1792.
[?]History of Girondins, vol. i. p. 197.
[?]Pictorial History of England, vol. iii. p. 276.
[?]January 21, 1794.
[?]Life of Napoleon, ch. xv.
[]February 12, 1793.
[?]December 15, 1792.
[?]A highly respectable inhabitant of Manchester, whose house was assailed by a
Church and King mob, upon the charge of being a Jacobin, or Republican and
Leveller. His son, who inherits his liberal principles, but whose good fortune it has
been to live in times when popular intelligence can discriminate between friends and
foes, is an alderman and magistrate of that city.
[]February 7, 1793.
[?]Vol. iii. p. 101.
[]December 15, 1792.
[?]May 7, 1793.
[]December 28, 1792.
[?]Feb. 18, 1793.
[?]May 27, 1795.
[]Dec. 9, 1795.
[?]December 14, 1795.
[?]October 29, 1793.
[?]Believe me, a war alone can change the direction of men's minds in France, re-
unite them, give a more useful aim to the passions, and awaken true patriotism.
[]Vol. iv. p. 7.

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